Mischa, Elizabeth and their dog Zoe lived on Whidbey Island, until fate drove them to the swamplands of Florida. The illustrations are made on Zoe's Ipad and photos have been taken by Zoe herself, whenever possible. Cards, Totes, Tees with Zoe drawings are available. Email us at mischaandzoe@gmail.com for custom ordering.
Posts begin July 2013 and continue to the present. Drop in anywhere!
Morning Pages Zoe Haughton
Tsouris July 12-21 2013
this
is so totally new for me thank you god for giving me a keyboard
i
have been trying to get my words out FOREVER and so this is a
very special day indeed
here
i am with my person(s) and they are constantly letting me know this
or that
all
through some sounds coming out of their snouts...
and
i am constantly letting them know something quite vague in return
because
hey i am after all a dog how specific can i get
but
now yippee here i am with the ability to actually let it all
hang out
because
i have a computer now and an assignment to keep a journal!
a
journal that no one can interfere with
a
journal that no one can edit it no one can criticize it,
this
is a very very good deal
whoever
came up with this idea has it all going on
so
i can now actually dive deep down into the interior and see
what
exactly is there because now i have WORDS
so
listen, here is the very first thing i need to say
i
would love to have some real food, real juicy succulent meat
no garnish just thick and juicy
and
guess what
i
was in heaven until about 9 months ago when my moms decided to become no not
vegetarian worse yet vegan and i haven't seen a decent piece of meat
since,
get
this sometimes they throw BEANS into
my dish, egads women what are you thinking…
well
i put up with it because, i love them, despite their shortcomings in the food
arena
i
have faith that one day they will see the error of their ways and
return meat to my bowl at the very least, perhaps even to their own
also
speaking of that they have these really large round
'dishes' on which they serve themselves and moi i
have now a very tiny metal bowl i use to have a larger bowl but then everyone
kept pointing at my belly and calling me a propane tank
so
that put an end to the larger bowl
it
also was a very pretty color of purple, but no more
i
have this tiny little metal thing
in
the winter its cold! in the summer its hot…. give me a nice hand
thrown ceramic bowl any day…
oh
well, as they say i don't make the bacon, only eat it , so i have
limited say in these concerns
i
must admit i do get a fair amount of biscuits
and
mischa takes me to do errands and she knows all the best spots where the window
opens up and some nice lady pokes her head out, spots me, and tosses be a
delicious little midday morsel
life
really is good. i shouldn't complain, but hey it seems like the
thing to do
i
hear crabbing a lot, most often when mischa is sitting in front of that
big rectangle in her office
then
the crabbing gets real loud and also a bit scary at times
i
heard her GROWL AT IT yesterday, that was new….that was really scary
so
i have to go out now and smell the neighbors business on the lawn
so
i will catch you later….
Zoe
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RABBIT HUNTIN
Day Two July 13
ZOE’S MORNING PAGES continued
Hello my self hello, and what a grand day indeed it is
today, why, you ask?
Yesterday mischa took me to that forest and, there was this
big handsome wooly brown specimen of canine in front of us, and guess what!
She found a RABBIT, yeah and it was already in heaven…so
She ate some before her dad caught up with her and dragged
her off
And then I got to snack on it too while mischa was jogging
her big greek behind up and down that hill on the waterman loop
It was a perfect moment
And isn’t that what we live for, I am going to remember that
day for a long time
I woke up this morning with that rabbit on my lips and ummm
umm ummm yum yes
Is all I have to say…simple pleasure, bring it on, mama!
This morning in bed mischa was reading that big red book and
putting all kinds of red marks underneath the letters that said PAY ATTENTION
I think she is taking some kind of training class
Probably like the one they threatened me with when I was
still a pup
I got outta that easy peasy though, because I am an
exemplary dog
That’s what my mom’s say, ‘’you are a little sugar sugar
sweet sweet butter butter, goodie goodie good, monkety monkety, chickee chickee
the best dog!’’
It’s a poem one of them wrote, at least that’s what I am
assuming
Because they recite it a lot, I mean a LOT
But it is in my best interest to let them pour it on, keeps
the biscuits flowin and the
Doggie training classes to a minimum.
Today is a good day, too because today is farmer’s market
And that means lots a lotsa left overs on the ground,
No one even knows I am vacuuming up a treasure trove of RED
MEAT
( You know the thing that got banned back at the old
hacienda )
yes today I will have red meats of all sorts and natures
from all sources known and indefinable too, meats like hot dogs and kielbasa,
baby back pork ribs, and perhaps if I am really lucky I will score a duck, I
loves duck… also I will be certain to find, sticky buns, samosas from exotic
Africa, gluten free cupcakes, little shrimps, a chicken wing
People let me tell you, today is a day, you must believe,
you cannot deny, god exists!
http://www.micheldemetriatsouris.blogspot.co
Zoe's Cards are $6 each or
Available in boxed sets of 5 for $25 plus shipping.
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ZOE ON THE FENCE
ZOE’S MORNING PAGES Day Three July 14
Well hello you
little butter butter cream cream, as Mischa would say.
I have good
news and bad news to report this morning. The bad news first...
the girls did
not go to the market, therefore, since
I really don't
have my license , I did not go either. I stayed home all day.
Mischa went
running in those hills all by herself, she said she was having a partly artists
date moment
and needed to
be alone. So no I spent the day digging up those old bones in front of the
studio.
Yes that's the
good news, always enjoy it when I remember where those old bones are buried.
But there's
more good news. Neighbor Tohnia came over with some real pretty daisies that
made
Mischa light
way up, and (don't tell anyone) Tohnia had a pocket full of t-bone!
Yes she had it
in a little napkin all cut into bit size pieces, and every time Mischa and Beth
looked the other way....
Tohnia reached
down in there and found me another one. I mean it just went on and on. AND it
got even better,
right before
she left she stood up and said, ''hey "(like she didn't already know)
"what's this in my pocket!?
a T-Bone! Oh
Zoe I almost forgot, I brought you this nice bone to chew on, here you go
little girl.""
Then she pulled
her snout all to one side and winked at me, as she waved bye. It was a grand
coup.
There's a lot
of that going on in the news right now, if I understand the people correctly,
coups of some sort
they keep
yaking about it in the morning when their heads are behind the enormous black
and white sheets with
the small print
and big pictures. Anyway back to Tohnia who would have ever guessed she had a
pocketful of meat for me,
and then the
coup de gras, the big T-Bone surprise at the end, all in cahoots with me,
and no chance of
interference on
the part of the mommies! You go Tohnia, I cannot wait to see you again!
Oh gee I almost
forgot, my cousin Pinky, she lives with Dana and Lee in pixburgh or somewhere s
like
that about four
or five nice hotels with swimming pools back...she sent me an email! I
don't think I ever got an email before,
I didn't know I
had an email address. I hear Mischa screaming at the rectangle a lot in the
afternoon and
I know there's
addresses and emails involved, so I always steer away from that part of the
house when the rectangles all lit up
and the
decibels are increasing... Anyway Pinky sent me an email, with a picture of
some bad jack russel dog she encountered i
n schacago. I'
m waitin on the details, and will write more on this little matter later. but
hey an email,
that was a
probably a good thing and a bad thing. Does this mean I have gone over to the
dark side?
http://www.micheldemetriatsouris.blogspot.com
Zoe's Cards are $6 each or
Available in boxed sets of 5 for $25 plus shipping.
Write to her mom with your favorites info@karthia.com
TEACHING MY DOG TO DANCE
ZOE HAUGHTON TSOURIS’ DAY 4 MORNING PAGES July 15
Good morning,
zoe, this is zoe saying good morning again. Mischa says I sound like ground
hogs day when I do that. I’m not exactly sure what she means by that, but I am
fairly certain it isn’t a compliment. I forgive her for this though, because
she pays me a lot of compliments every day, actually don’t mention this to her,
but some days she is over the t o p, with the butter butter cream cream sugar
suger sweetie sweetie sweet thing…
Guess what, I am now actually having an ongoing conversation with my
cuzin Pinky, on the email!. Pinky has an ipad too! You know she is not much of
a talker when you are right there with her, but on the email, she is gabbing
away at me. She must feel safer not having to make that eye contact thing,
after all she is a pit bull and possibly lives in fear of having her ancestors
pop out and start eating people. Not sayin I think she would ever do such a
thing, but believe me, one thing I am learning from these morning pages is we
all gots ghosts in our clostets, whooee bob, I seen some of mine recently yes I
have…
So I just heard from Pinky this morning and she says
‘’Dear cuzzin Zoee, If you see this dog RUN and HIDE. He lives
in shacago. Is that near you’’
So I
answered her right away I was so excited to get the email… I says, Pink
schacago? egad, i went thru that schacago this summer
with he girls
it is one long chain of tires the size of a house! flying by
the car window, you can't even catch a good whiff of anything in schacago
i would never know that dog was lurking around, can't smell nothing
but rubber in schacago
Did he come after you pink? Was lee lee with you?
Always keep the redhead close by, for sure, (they have phones
and boots and I think your redhead even has a spray gun like in the movies!)
What was you doin in schacago anyways?
Are yunz comin to see us? Cross country like we did?
PS it is not as fun as they make it sound in the
brochure…
except for the cool hotel beds, it is b o r
i n g…..
and then Pink writes right back at me and says
‘’ The dog to be avoided went back to shacago not a
minute too soon. He is somehow my cuzzin. His snout is very long and was either
up my butt or fussing around my face. Roll up the windows and drive fast
through shacago.
I don't much care for car rides longer than an
hour myself…
Did you really eat a rabbit? Time for a nap in
the sun. ‘’
So I says to Pink
egads pink, those boy dogs are the worst with the butt sniffing
thing
i don't go in for that that much
i can pretty much smell you from a distance
i dont mean I can smell, you, pinky, i don’t mean like you
smell
i mean i got a good nose
don't all we dawgs have good noses
yeah i don't understand why some of em have to get all up in
your junk
it's not right really
thanks for the advice on schacago too you got that right
and yes I did get a nice chunk of rabbit! Thanks for asking
we'll find one next time we're together it's worth it
i don't kill em though
i'm a bit more vulturistic…
you? you ever kilt one?
enjoy your nap
i'm going to stand far away from beth while she waters the
garden
mischas in that studio making a picture of gertrude stein holding
pablo picasso's dawg!!!
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Zoe's Cards are $6 each or
Available in boxed sets of 5 for $25 plus shipping.
Write to her mom with your favorites info@karthia.com
THE DAY ZOE WAS WRESTLING WITH HERSELF
ZOE’S MORNING PAGES Day 5 July 16
Hello ‘’propane tank’’ that’s what some girl called me
yesterday, hey that hurts
You know me and my mom both have a weight issue.
My mom says its all in our jeans ..
I believe her of course except, don’t tell her but (I don’t
have no jeans)
I do have a new cowgirl outfit though, and I’m going to draw a
picture of it tomorrow and send it to my couszin pinky in pixburg,
Speakin of pink, I heard from her this morning and she was
pleased as pink punch to be included in my dairy, or is it diary
I says ‘’hey pink, you’re becoming my best bud girl, of course
you gonna show up in my pages, I hang on yer every word…’’
But the thing I want to get down to this morning is this incessant
wrestling thing I seem to be doing with my self
I’ll be laying around the house, snoozing, and then I feel like
this shuddering run through me, and my legs start flailing
and my tail goes all abuzz, some drool comes outta my snout, my
tongues flapping, and I starts throwing punches.
You know I am a peaceful dog, really I am, but here I wake up
from a nice nap with paws up dukeing it out with whom? MY OWN SELF
Come one Zoe, I say to my self, what is gong on here. What’s
bothering you girl?
I look around and everywhere I settle my eyes I see, people in
motion, dirt being flung, dollies rolling by, paintbrushes waving,
people bantering, cars and trucks and tractors running up and
down the drive, electric saws….urgh I hate the electric saws!
And me I’m just hanging around, not really doin nothing, and I
thinks to my self,
‘’zoe, you should
lend a hand here zoe, get up girl get involved, get movin’’
But I just cant seem to do it, I’m like stuck in my spot, just
lookin from one person to the next trying to figure out,
what to do, how to get started, how will I fit in. Then I gets
exhausted trying tp figure it out, and I go back to sleep.
But guess what, next thing I know I’m dreamin again and I’m in
another wrestling match with guess who.
I wonder if other dogs have this dilemma? I’m gonna write
pink, maybe she can shed some light.
I know her mom’s are always buzzin around in a flurry too,
wonder how she copes with it all.
Dog days…isn’t that an expression I heard once. I gotta
ask Mischa what that means,
I have a feeling, this is a need to know situation.
http://www.micheldemetriatsouris.blogspot.com
Zoe's Cards are $6 each or
Available in boxed sets of 5 for $25 plus shipping.
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I FOUND PICASSO'S DOG
Zoe’s Morrning Pages
Day 6 July 17
Yikes, Mischa said she was working on a new painting, about
Picasso’s Dog,
but cheez pizza, I never thought she would have me figured
in for the model!
You know, don’t tell anybody, but sometimes I think mischa
thinks that she is
the great and
wonderful Picasso reincarnate..Uh Huh, I do.
Anyway, I wasn’t all that happy when she let me in the
studio today and showed me the piece,
I mean, come on now hun, I am not that long or that rigid
am I? Really?
I mean I know I have my problems in the looks department but
you got me rendered more like Izzie,
Rosie H’s pig, and less like the svelt pup that I truly am…
well, inside anyways.
You know personal image is a drag isn’t it. I mean you could
be dog ugly, excuse the pun (that’s directed at me…)
but just have
this killer attitude and see your self as Jackie O, or Michele O, or Oprah O!
Looks coming and going.
People stopped in their tracks, straining their necks,
trying to get a closer look at you….
cause you walkin around with that a t t i t u d e! you ownin
the joint! You shinin inside out.
Then some dude walks up to you and says, ‘’hey you is u g l
y, you dog, now scram before you break my eyes into pieces!’’
And you’re all “What?”
OR on the bad
days, you could be some great classical beauty but feel like a gila monster
and if you feel like a gila monster, you ARE a Gila Monster.
So my big question for the day, and I think I will consult
pink on this, ‘’What’s the truth?”
“And, does
anyone care?”
Also, just before I dash of to smell the trail of memories
left on the grass by that big poodle who was here yesterday…
I have to say, I get the jitters around those snarly dogs.
This week has been a bit trying for me, and I think I stood
up for myself quite well, but you know it just rattles the noives,
and I never sleep as well on those nights.
Yesterday for example, In My Own Yard, the visiting poodle
starts snapping at me when I get out of the car.
Mind you we were in the same car! We exited the same car. We
landed on my front lawn, and she gets all possessive about…?
Not sure what, and starts nippin at me. Well my mom snatched
me up in her arms, and got down real low next to the poodle,
and Growled at her. Yeah it was awesome, just like she
growls at the rectangle! Except this time the object of her ill humor backed
down.
I don’t think she has the same luck with the rectangle. Just
sayin.
Well gotta dig in to memory lane, see ya (or me) later.
http://www.micheldemetriatsouris.blogspot.com
Zoe's Cards are $6 each or
Available in boxed sets of 5 for $25 plus shipping.
Write to her mom with your favorites info@karthia.com
Zoe’s Morrning Pages
Day 7 July 18
Ok here I am again, and I am still workin out that trauma
from yesterday!. Mischa says she works all
her traumas out in the studio, so she let me in there with
her today, and showed me how to draw on the ipad.
What liberation! What a release!
Thank you Mischa for delivering me from my demons. Holy
moly, I had no idea this was the elixir!
I have been lookin for this for 14 years. I had to go grey
in my muzzle and get threatened by a beefy bossy poodle
in order to arrive here. But arrive I did, and I am down on
my knees sister, say it again, down on my knees in thanks.
So you get the little pretend pen thing and just start
making marks,
next thing you know your whole life starts appearing in
pictures right before your very ideas. Magic!
Yes. Prayer answered! Yes.
I cannot wait to tell Pink, she is going to love this. She’s
got issues, I know it,
I see her layin
round that house, with her worry beads tucked neatly underneath her chin, so as
no one can get a fix on em.
She’s been to Greece ya know! Yeah, in her dreams. Her moms go all the time and leave her
home with
Danny from next door. It used to be an ok time, but then
Danny got big and his lady friend started comin over,
next thing Pink knew she was all day and all night, alone.
Maybe she could catch a pet in the morning when the two ran out the door,
but mostly not. Anyways me and Pnk had this big talk about
going to Greece with our moms sometime soon.
They all went without us enough times now, we both got six
sets of beads, a tablecloth and enough small print dresses for multiple
lifetimes.
We really don’t know what their thinking when they come home
with this stuff. Maybe they meant to give it to a bi-ped
but forgot and just left it in our rooms, don’t know. I do use
by worry beads a lot though, times
are tough.
Well, gotta go, I just saw the neighbor’s mutt come down
through the woods. Better go see what he wants. Probably just wants to use our
facilities,
if you know
what I mean. I’m guessin ours are better than his is, or else we gota better magazine selection. Anyway I
think he is kinda cute,
and I’m pretty sure he feels the same way about me, so I’ll
just be see you(yeah that’s me) later.
Oh
good morning good lookin! Did I have a full week or what, I am exhausted.
painters in and out all my thing in one big pile in the middle of the room, and
then Mischa decides its sax week and starts wailing on that old martin alto.
Yikes my ears and my eyes were on fire all week long.
And
they pick that color from the deep recesses of Kensington in north Philly to
frame my favorite window. Well eeoohwee, that was one ugly color, so they have
repainted it three times now, I have to admit they are finally headed in the
right direction but what a bumpy start, (and don't say nothin but you know
Mischa is a professional artist! Chez pizza her eyes must be goin south)
I
had a pleasant visit yesterday from a pup named Luna. Is she all full of
herself or what? But I like her though she got that young boy energy but the
best thing is, she's a Girl, my personal preference in dogs, usually that is,
there are a few exceptions. You know like that big handsome black one that
comes down the mountain, uh huh, that IS what I am talkin about!
Anyways
Luna came over with her mom, I am not positive because I really can't see into
them car windows, but I think Luna might have been driving! And
that's cool, not many pups have their license, ...to drive that is... We all have
the metals dangling around our necks, Mischa says it's the law. (Don't
say nothin but she is not exactly one to follow the letter of the law when it
comes to her paperwork an at) but anyways I wear those dangling metals, and
finally a few months back, after that huge German Shepard tried to eat me,
Mischa got the bright idea, and I am so grateful for it, that I should maybe
not wear both them metals at the same time, as they alert them fine- tuned ears
of the wooly predator types. Dogs always start yelping the minute we go for a
walk. Then them ones that ain't tied up or just are simply too bad to stay tied
up come chasing us! And it seems like we are always on guard the whole time,
dodging bad dogs, all cause of the dangling metals.
Anyway
them days is over, thank god.
I'm
goiin to town this morning, there's a trail in the woods that is callin to me,
and I am not 100% sure, but I think I left a bone there... So so long yourself,
for now.
http://www.micheldemetriatsouris.blogspot.com
Zoe's Cards are $6 each or
Available in boxed sets of 5 for $25 plus shipping.
Write to her mom with your favorites info@karthia.com
JOYRIDE
Zoes Morning Pages Day 8 July 19
Oh
good morning good lookin! Did I have a full week or what, I am exhausted.
Painters in and out, all my things in one big pile in the middle of the room,
and
then Mischa decides its sax week and starts wailing on that old martin alto.
Yikes my ears and my eyes were on fire all week long.
And
they pick that color from the deep recesses of Kensington (as in north philly!) to
frame my favorite window.
Well
eeoohwee, that was one ugly color, so they have repainted it three times now,
I
have to admit they are finally headed in the right direction but what a bumpy
start, (and don't say nothin but you know Mischa is a professional artist!
Chez
pizza her eyes must be goin south)
I
had a pleasant visit yesterday from a pup named Luna. Is she all full of
herself or what?
But
I like her though she got that young boy energy but the best thing is, she's a
Girl, my personal preference in dogs, usually that is,
there
are a few exceptions. You know like that big handsome black one that comes down
the mountain, uh huh, that IS what I am talkin about!
Anyways
Luna came over with her mom, I am not positive because I really can't see into
them car windows,
but
I think Luna might have been driving! And that's cool, not many
pups have their license, ...to drive that is...
We
all have the metals dangling around our necks, Mischa says it's the law.
(Don't
say nothin but she is not exactly one to follow the letter of the law when it
comes to her paperwork an at) but anyways
I
wear those dangling metals, and finally a few months back, after that huge
German Shepard tried to eat me, Mischa got the bright idea,
and
I am so grateful for it, that I should maybe not wear both them metals at the
same time, as they alert them fine- tuned ears of the wooly predator types.
Dogs
always start yelping the minute we go for a walk. Then them ones that ain't
tied up or just are simply too bad to stay tied up come chasing us!
And
it seems like we are always on guard the whole time, dodging bad dogs, all
cause of the dangling metals.
Anyway
them days is over, thank god.
I'm
goiin to town this morning, there's a trail in the woods that is callin to me,
and I am not 100% sure, but I think I left a bone there...
So
so long yourself, for now.
http://www.micheldemetriatsouris.blogspot.com
Zoe's Cards are $6 each or
Available in boxed sets of 5 for $25 plus shipping.
Write to her mom with your favorites info@karthia.com
ZOE STUCK BETWEEN A BIG DIFFERENCE OF OPINION
Zoe’s
Morning Pages Day 9 July 20th
Well
let me tell you something, self, zoemou, as i am affectionately referred to by
the one with the dark hair…who we are currently not speaking to, because she
was bad…and therefore I dare not utter her name out loud…but listen up I think
the world’s problems are about to be solved for all of eternity, so this is
big.
This
new listening-in thing the government is doing, well guess what, hello, not so
new, but anyways, this listening-in thing the government is doing is truthfully
a good thing, because, they are fine tuning all the latest technological inventions,
so that some big company that is owned most likely by some guy who dick chaney
is in the pocket thereof, can make a product that will become absolutely
indispensible to every living creature. And I am countin myself and all my
canine cousins in on this. But for bipeds like my moms this is going to be a
gold mine! What you may ask is
your big idea? Well if we can all download those running tapes of our every
move and every word, then we can hear ourselves! And if we can hear ourselves,
maybe when we start mouthin off some lame dialogue or criticism or opinions,
the playback will be a real eye opener and ear opener too. So there can be no
more of that ‘’I said…” “No you didn’t, you said…..’’. ‘’Uh huh , no sir, uh
huh, no sir….” thing ad infinitum.
Like when that stuff goes on in our house and man let me tell you, the
lines start to get drawn and before you know it everyone and everything in the
house is immobilized. I might even say awe-struck at the big difference of
opinion that just slung itself down upon us. And if we had those tapes, and we
all sat down at the table and played em back, calmly listening to the entire
unfolding…there would be some reconciling done pretty quick, cause everyone
knows you cannot dispute the facts. Least that is what some everybody knows,
there are some everybodys around
here that thinks otherwise, but I am not into naming names. We got enough
problems on our hands today.
So
Dick Chaney and Big Brother and all you moguls out there, get the product in
the package. We’ll take three!
I
got to run now, I just caught a whiff of some new item passing by the property,
I will have to examine this more carefully, and lay my name down on it. Fire
hydrants come in all shapes and sizes around here. Gotta go claim mine.
http://www.micheldemetriatsouris.blogspot.com
Zoe's Cards are $6 each or
Available in boxed sets of 5 for $25 plus shipping.
Write to her mom with your favorites info@karthia.com
Zoe’s Morning Pages Day 10 July 21st
Ok good good morning. I think the marine layer is taking a
break, I love it! We got sun… lots a sun here today.
Mischa
loves that, and it keeps her in a good mood. (Just between me and me, we do
everything we can to keep her in a good mood, cause the bad moods are p r i c k
l y, I think that's what B calls it. It feels a lot like blackberry stickers to
me.)
Well
and Mischa's been on me all week because of my bad bone habit. Apparently she
says I just developed the habit recently but that I am like a dog with a bone about this habit. Now I am new to English
and all, but that seems like one redundant idiom if you ask me. Anyways ever
since that poodlesque thing has been coming over in the daytime, she says I
have gotten very possessive about the leather bone I found, and I think she has
point. I never liked that bone before, but I went outta my way to find it when
the poodle arrived and have been steadily burying it digging it up and
reburying it for weeks now. Like ‘’why should she have it’’, I think to myself.
It is MY BONE after all. My mom's have just about had it with the bone
activity though. They said the last straw was that hole I dug in the living
room last night.
I
heard one of them growl when they discovered it, I think I can guess which one
it was, who growled, I mean...
Also
in a way I wish I was over this bone thing myself, my nose is sore from pushing
all that dirt on and off the thing. It even got swollen up, they was pointing
at it and saying the word bee a lot (which always confuses me cause they call
them selves b’s and they have a couple a lady friends in new mexico they call
b’s, and come to think of it there’s a pack of people they call b’s and then
there were those insects they had in boxes for all those years, them was bees
too!)
Mischa
says if I don't get over it ( the bone) soon we are all getting in the car and
going to see some kinda doctor. "No way!" I thinks to myself, she
knows I hate doctors, doesn't she know this, how could she even threaten me
with such a thing. But really she thinks the problem might be bigger than us. I
am not sure what that means, but I do agree it is time to put the whole thing
down and walk away from the bone.
Pink
and Luna, take note pals, this could happen to you!
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Zoe’s Morning Pages Day 11 July 22nd
Whew. That was a full night of dreaming. Things dropping outta the sky like flies. It must be those Canada geese that keep driving by, hugging the tops of the cedars, their wings are N o i s y ! I can hear them comin a mile away of course, and usually I am dozing off and then I get all turned around by the honkin and flappin. I think we are being invaded. Mischa said that happened once, getting invaded.... not so long ago to a friend of hers who lives right up the road! Yeah she was just standing around in her own yard minding her own business, well she might have been milking some old cow, but anyways, outta the sky comes this big fish! A salmon! And it falls right on her head! And she gets all dizzy like and starts stumbling around in the pasture. Her big old cow comes over to check out the air mail delivery, and turns her nose up and saunters off. But then her big old boxer comes out cause he had a good whiff of the thing while it was descending from the heavens. The boxer runs by the lady knocks her over nabs the salmon and runs off. Mischa said she was mad as a hat at that dang dog. Also she thought maybe it was going to be her good fortune to have dinner delivered from the sea and the sky all at the same time, but then it didn't turn out that way. But what I was getting at, is that you never know what's coming your way, or from which direction. So last night I was dreaming all our favorite things were pouring down upon us from the sky. At first it was ''wow how lucky am I?'' But then it was like a bombardment, and we had to duck and cover. So now I gotta go back to the old, "be careful what you ask for" thing. And now I am in a sour mood, because it's not all that easy for a dog to get what she asks for, is it?
Well yesterday Mischa went to her friends studio to make "art prints." I guess she was pretty excited about it cause she forgot me In the driveway and blew on down the road, with me standing there kickin the dirt and feelin all sorry for my self. Then I sees her barreling back down the road waving her arms out the window and calling my name! Then we get half way there and she says she forgot to turn the garden off or something like that and twirls the car around and back we go. When we finally got there, was I a lucky dog or what? Remember that rabbit? Well some kind person kilt a rabbit ate half and left the rest for me. Right in the middle of Bridget's driveway. Mischa was all up in arms about it so when she ran off to get a shovel, I knew I had to act fast, I gobbled that little bunny carcass down, it was good good good. sorry pink and Luna, you gotta be quick in this world, didn't save you none, but keep a look out all around, you never know what's coming your way.
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July 23 2013 Morning Pages Day 12
Zoe Haughton Tsouris
Hey Zoe, it’s me Zoe again. And this was a grand morning, because a frog croaked under my paw and a picture of Pink came up on the ipad, with a note attached! Mischa said it was another email! I never actually saw it happen before, the last email I got, was hand delivered to me on a piece of paper, so I didn’t realize they could come right outta mid air en all. And guess who it was from, Pink. I’m gonna put it right here in my Morning Pages so I can always remember the first thing that appeared outta mid air:
Hi Zoe,
There's something about them rawhides aint there. I sniff em out on my daily walk. If one's close to a fence I always try to snag it. (Then I make Lee carry it home for me. I ain't no retriever.)
A long time ago, I kilt a bunny.
Dana got hysterical-I dropped it fast-thought it must be poisonous or something, but you lived to tell, so maybe I just got hysterical like Dana did.
Yesterday I was in the yard and must have got too close to a flower and got a stain on my back. ‘’Lilly juice!’’ Dana said. Ever happen to you?
Love,
Pinky
So I wrote Pink right back and this is what I told her:
Pink
Lily juice! I like the sounds of that, but I don't mean no disrespect….did it sting or anything?
Lily juice sounds like it my be pretty
like a little painting made by a flower on your back.
That's awful nice that lee lee caries your rawhide.
PS (do you chew on it?)
PPS Personally i don't really like em…
They make my tongue feel like it got scratched by a
c a t.
Zoe
Well this is also a grand new morning cause the ladies were giggling first thing this morning and had their heads out the window lookin up at the sky. It was them geese I think.
I couldn’t really see or hear too good cause they had both their bodies scrunched into the window opening, so not much was comin through, I couldn’t really even get a good scent on.
Just sayin, there wasn’t a whole heck of a lot of laughing the past few days so it is always a good sign when they get a jump on it in the morning. Me I wake up laughing everyday. Why not? Usually an hour or so into the day, I starts getting anxious about this or that, but first thing, I am optimistic just in case I might luck out and get a whole day of fun thrown my way. Fate has its good moments too you know. Like when that fish fell outta the sky, and that dog almost caught it on the fly, nevertheless he got to eat a fresh salmon direct from god! What gets better en at? And aint that fate?
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July 25,6,7 oops 2013 Morning Pages
Zoe Haughton Tsouris Day 13, 14, 15
Well hello to me again and again. I still cannot get over this luxury of the written word.
I think I am going to have to share these morning pages with someone, because after all, I am a social creature, and I do long for connection.
Speaking of connection, I have been doing double duty this weekend.
My mom’s are at that big show in seattle and since I go everywhere they go, I went too. We are up at 6 and on that ferry by 7.
Mischa isn't really growling that much right now but she is muttering a lot first thing when she gets up
and then at the guy in the orange vest on the ferry dock. I saw her shoot him a bitter nasty side glance last night
when he dropped the bar right as she got to the dock. "I hate being the cut off girl" she said "really hate it".
She even mighta hurt her hand on the sterling wheel when she was beating on it like a drum for a long time while the boat was pullin away.
Then she was pointing and I coulda swore I saw her crying a little as it Kittitas disappeared into thin air.
" I hate being the cut off girl" she told B, once more like maybe no one heard her the first three times.
She said it would be another hour till the next boat, and she was "crazy tired" she said.
Yeah and she’s right on that point. We musta talked to a couple hundred people today. My tongue's sore from all that talkin! My tails exhausted, and I even suspect I got a little bald spot from all those behind the ear scratches I received (true, many were welcome, but many others... not so much).
Anyways them twelve hour days is getting to all of us old gals, we’re just like a gaggle of whiners floatin on the water at the crack of dawn, tryin our best to adjust our attitudes so as not to continue to put bad vibes out into the universe, in case it should be us that breaks the camel’s back, or something like that…
The saving grace is the biscuit at the ticket window, first thing in the morning and last thing at night. The moms get those big Chinese teas on the way in, and act real calm and collected for a minute while they drink em and stare out at the sound. Mischa’s always sure that today is a day for orcas to come flying outta the water…but just sayin, they pretty much make that declaration every day that we’re on the water.
I don’t think either of them has seen as much as a fin… if the truth be told. But as B says Mischa’s not first in line when it comes to telling the truth, she prefers to ‘’elaborate’’ ‘’to make the story worth telling’’ she says. And then she always makes sure we remember it was the greeks that invented the novel, or storytelling or the alphabet or kimonas or something like that, and justifies the whole ‘’exaggeration’’, which is what B calls it.
Well the rest of the good news for today is…I got another email! This one was from my cousins in New Mexico!, not old Mexico, the newer one. Mischa says we visited them last October. I think I sorta put it outta my mind cause there really was a pack of dogs there as I remember correctly. And, Pink, if you end up reading this, we know what a pack of dogs does, don’t’ we? That whole what did you eat, smell this no smell this thing ad infinitum. We don’t go in for that too much do we? And then there was them two little terriors, the girl’s the worst…b o s s y. My mom says I have to be nice to all of them cause they are our relatives, and we stick together. But hey, don’t I ever have a say in the matter.
Anyways it was sure nice to hear from Aja, and I can’t wait to go visit with her now, cause it sounds like we might be two of a kind, with regards to our self reflectin tendencies en all. You never know what a dog thinks until you ask her, and seems like not too many people ask us, so we gotta be as Aretha would say ‘’sisters doin it for ourselves’’ I guess.
Oh yeah I almost forgot, the reason I started this whole thing this morning was to mention the chicken on a stick!, the raviolis Mischa thought were mushroom but turned out to be (real beef!), and the table for three we had at the swell restaurant in bell view. Not sure why but there was no bell outside our window, so i guess they call it that for old times sake or wishful thinkin or somethin.
Okay gotta go, we got new neighbors downstairs and i gotta do a little revelry call to get them up and outta here.
Remind me to tell you about the clown in the car behind us on the ferry last night. Was that a scary thing or what? Yes it was.
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'
WHEN ZOE WAS A COWGIRL
July 28 2013 Zoe's Morning Pages Day 16
When Zoe Was A Cowgirl or Workin Breeds
Godday matey. Had a visit from my old kiwi friend robin and her wife petie last week. Love them accents! You know Mischa and I go to indian restaurants just to hear the waiters lilting in our ears, it is pure bliss, it is better than meditation, it is ecstasy in air. There's plenty of accents we like, french makes you want to swagger a little and smoke cigarettes, chinese is good for crazy rhythms, mexican has them nice soft edges to the letters. But indian! east indian, heaven on earth man.
Mischa gets them books on tape from the big brown truck and the guy with the shorts and biscuits, and often she gets em in hindi so as she can get big doses of that in her ear while she's working!
And when she's workin, you know I'm workin, which was what i wanted to talk about today.
Don't get me wrong I am not gripin, I'm just statin the facts.
I'm getting a little long in the tooth for these prolonged off the island excursions into the real world.
The boat's one thing, i am over the ridiculously loud grumbling noise that comes from its belly. I get it that it eats a lot of fish everyday and maybe some sea anemones and an otter or two and gets the indigestion, cause i get indigestion when i eat the wrong thing too. (Kinda like that really dead rabbit i ate at bridget's house the other day, that didnt really sit too good with me, repeats itself, misha says...).
The expressway i could live without cause the window is mostly up and i cant smell nothin and then i get all disoriented. Then if they put the window down, all kinds of untoward things fly up my nose and into my eyes even though i squint really hard.
And yes sometimes i rest my paw on the window switch and burn out the motor and people cuss at the floor, and fuss with the switch until it all starts workin again.
But it's that tent 8 am to 8 pm...people people people what are you thinking, there has got to be a better way to pull this all together!
If it would help you could hire me out to do some rabbit huntin, or some lassoing, some herdin...i was a cowgirl down in California before we found each other, ya know. I could make us some extra bucks. I was even in a rodeo once in salinas. You know that's Steinbeck country and they got some smart old ranchers down there that'd snap me up in a second to do some cow hand work.
Anything to get us out of the tent business girls, come one, let's get creative here, you're 'artists', we can do better than this.
Like Pink says, I am a workin breed but, my aim is to work smarter not harder. Somehow we got the sentence all turned around, and are fast at it doin just the oppoosite.
Mischa says she feels a lot like a hamster!
Yikes, i could eat a hamster, hope she doesnt turn into one,
that's a road we definitely would not want to go down.
Well I'm off again, got to catch the boat. Goin down down down...
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Day17 July 29 2013 Zoe's Morning Pages
Clown in the Car
Hey there zoe, kali mera, as they say. Good morning.
It is grey grey grey here this morning. B says we should be happy about that since we had nothing but sun for a month now. Like she thinks that is a downer? Me and Mischa’s from the Mediterranean or the subterranean, one or the other, and Mischa says ‘we like it hot’, and we do. We like sun on our heads in the morning, and I myself go in for a big full moon at night too. Wonder where we could live so as to get the full moon more often?
I don’t like charging that black cat in the bushes when it is pitch black out there. It scares me!
What else scares me, you might ask. Well one thing for sure is that big fat clown that popped outta the car behind us on the ferry last night. Egad, I almost had to excuse myself. Mischa was afraid it was that lady who sorta kinda housesat for us last time we went to florida. I’m sure someone told us she was a clown, and none of us liked her all that much either. She scared me too.
So Mischa parks the car on the boat, she happens to glance out the rearview, and all of a sudden I sees her rise up like a foot and a half off her seat. And she was still strapped in too! And she made like a shrieking sound in her snout and turns around real quick. She scared us terribly, flopping around like that outta the blue. ‘’What is it?” B yells at her…I did too but I don’t really think she heard me. ‘’It’s a clown’’ she says all horrified double-takin and wiping her eyes to make sure.
‘’A clown?’’ we repeat back like people do, for they don’t really know why, but they’re feelin’ kinda dumbstruck, and feelin the need to fill in the gap…
Then Mischa hops outta the car and disappears into the belly of the boat. ‘’She’s leaving us here with this clown’’ I says to B. ‘’Oh no honey, ‘’ she says, ‘’she’s probably calling the clown police or something, she’ll take care of it, don’t you worry.’’
And then I sat back down, curled up and conjured up a good long dream of me and Mischa sittin in the yard, just a talkin and laughin and her reaching over and ticklin me a little now and then, both of us slappin our knees like old people do out in the country side, at least in the movies they do that…
Gotta go now, gotta wash that clown outta my coat…
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TEACHING MY DOG TO FLY
Day18
July 30 2013 Zoe's Morning Pages
Flying
Lessons and B’s Big Bday!
I
don’t know why, but this morning I woke up with a sharp attitude on my
shoulder, and I got to find a way to shake it off, before I start bleeding on
things. Mischa says I am suffering from a kind of spiritual blight. I have not
the slightest idea what she means by that, except I might, deep down, know
exactly what she means. I was dreamin about that neighborhood in Pixburgh that
we drive through to go crosstown. It’s like the sun can never shine there,
causa all the blight in the vicinity. Sun don’t like blight, it can’t light it
up none. Mischa says you can be poor and feel rich, or you can be rich and feel
poor, like it’s all one decision and not really a fact of life’s circumstances,
at all. So I guess to answer my own question, I need a new pair of eyes this
morning.
One
thing that’s got me down is that dog Jazz, with the bum leg and the missin
eye!. His mom has to pick him up like he’s a big sausage in a sling and cart
him around from room to room. And the whole time he’s swinging up there in mid
air he’s howling and muttering on and on. I think, jeez, in a few years, that
could be me in that sling! Is this what we have to look forward to? Where’s
that bright-eyed pup I used to see in the mirror? Mischa said last night she
was up against it too, when she realized she was the oldest person in the room,
by a big stack of years! She said she saw her reflection in the mirror and it
was all stiff and dark lookin. And then B, I aint gonna call her old B like I
do sometimes, she gets up this morning, and it’s her birthday, and I mean a big
birthday…she’s 65 today!, and she’s like whoa hold on wait a minute, I am
definitely not ready for this turn of events people, let’s slow this train
right down. And we’re all goin…ah um, B, not sure that’s a possibility, given
the nature of time and all… Then Mischa says, well you know we invented time
didn’t we, and now we’re all payin for it, cause we keep reflectin on it’s
rushin by us and scarin us half to death, which is really what we are all
freaked about, but dare not utter its name.
Eek,
Pink, if you read this, I need help workin my way through his one. I was hopin
for a grand day with the B so she could be like the center of attention and
all, and maybe make her a little party or something, because she sure does have
a bunch of people who think she is a very swell human, but now I don’t know
what to do, cause everyone of us is having this spiritual dilemma right on top
of her big birthday!
I
forgot to tell you this though…yesterday, Mischa and I went to that forest over
by where I ate the dead rabbit…and we was runnin through the woods and we goes
over this big boulder and all of a sudden, without any warnin or anything …we
was air borne! Pink I mean to tell you we was flying!. And Mischa looks over at
me, like she knew it was gonna happen and says ‘ pretty cool huh, butter
butter, cream cream, sugar sweetie jackety jack… you know like she does and
goes on with that for a few minutes….it’s a game she plays with herself to see
how many adjectives she can string together all to say, she thinks I am
swell. And I think she is swell
too, and also we both think B is the swellest of them all. So now that I look
at it this way, I think I am just gonna turn this whole day around right now.
I’m gonna get them two girls, and chart a new flight course for this morning. A
birthday afterall is a gift, is it not?
We
better get up outta bed and accept it graciously before it ain’t there no more.
Oooh, nature is shoutin at me… gotta run, accidents are frowned upon in
Day19 July 31 2013 Zoe's Morning Pages
65th Bday and Big News
Oh hello hello Zoemou. That’s what Mischa calls me..she said it means ‘my zoe’ in greek…that appears to be the original language of all creatures, according to her people. B is suspicious of this, as I might add, am I. But we let her get away with things like this because…she has some good points too, like she can throw a big birthday bash, in a moments notice. That’s what happened yesterday and B liked it a lot, even though she contends she is feelin more like solitary these days. Mischa says birthdays are not for being alone, and all B’s friends agreed, so we got to go to a restaurant and eat cake and rufus came too. Rufus is a huge bull dog that lives at Shoe’s house. He makes some incredible sounds in his snout and there is usually a lot of liquid spewing as well…but he’s a nice guy and there are ALWAYS a lot of biscuits involved when rufus and Shoe are in the vicinity.
Oh and clipsy was there too, over at Jude and Chris’ at the end of the night with Judes’ famous berry pie and ice cream topper! (she’s the one in the pixture with the black hair!) Yes to ice cream toppers! You gotta be real careful about food when Clypsy’s around though she has a little problem, like she thinks all the food in the world is hers.. Excuse me, hon, we share here…you gotta catch on to this sooner or later. She growls at your head and sometimes takes a little nip if she thinks you’re gonna eat her pie. Chris keeps her eye on Clypsy so as not to get any blood on anything, which is real good for me, cause I’d be the one who’d be getting bit…
Roxy and Laura were there and they both had big hammers hangin outta their pockets, Dana woulda liked that I bet, she has a lot of hammers in her pockets too.
Bridget came and was laughing a lot, at something Mischa said, which personally I think Mischa was making up as she went along, but, hey. Them two friends from Pixburg were here, the one has a voice from another planet, it’s one of them accents that puts you right to sleep soooo relaxin! And SMcB, who Mischa thinks the world of, she tried to explain why, it had something to do with making drawings and pencils, but it went over my head.
The main thing was this: a good time was had by all, it was a warm a luxurious night, and we was all fed and petted to out hearts content. I am wondering why we don’t do this every night, aren’t you…cause feedin is good, and pettin is good and laughin is good and lots a people and dogs who are called friends are very good.
Hey speakin of feedin, I smell something cookin downstairs, gotta run.
Day20 August 1 2013 Zoe's Morning Pages
Fear of Letting Go
Dear Zoee,
Sorry I dint get right back to you yesterday but your blog gave me the ennui(that's French for what you was feeling for most of the blog) it made me think about not doing no high jumping no more. I used to be able to REALLY jump high. With EASE. And lookin good doin it too. I tried to jump onto a wall on my walk a while back - it's where your Mischa weeded when she was here… -but I missed the top by a whole lot AND FELL. And that cuzzin of mine from shacago makes me feel old and irritable which reminds me of Big Dog who was really old and spit up if he drank too fast. That ain't happenin to me YET. Then on top of all my ennui, I had a have a BATH. So the stars must've been all screwy yesterday and gave us all a bad day.
I did have one thought about the dog in a sling. Instead of thinking of him as a sausage, picture him as a giant zucchini. Much better image I think.
Hope you got some good snacks today.
Pinky
PINK
You are so right-on cuz. That Jazz has a mom who is a garden just like your mom, a big garden, so zuchinni it is, much better visual, easier on the eyes fur sure. Do you say she is a garden, or she’s always in the garden or she’s a big gardener? Whatever, both them is that.
Sorry if I added to your uneasiness, its our age though, it scares us sometimes. Sometimes your just layin around minded your own business and there’ll be like a sharp pain come zoomin up your body lengthwise like a freight train. And your like Whoa, what the …. Then someone’s hanging over you mumbling something with their eyebrows all furrowed and their snout all turned down…I don’t know how they can make so many different faces with that thing, it’s a mystery aint it? Anyways then everyone gets all uncomfortable and starts makin phone calls, next thing you know you’re in some really smelly waitin room with people in long white coats runnin all around trying to poke things into all your orifices. I don’t go in for that do you Pink?
Mischa says she gets them real bad anxiety attacks when any little thing in her body or my body or b’s body is the lsightest little bit outta sync. B says its cause she’s afraid of dying. And me and Mischa says, YES we are afraid of dyin, isn’t everybody? The big unknown, is not exactly a cozy thought is it?
The void, the dark side, the eternal rest, the ultimate demise of the self….the thing we work so hard to find!!!! Passing away, deceasing, culminating, going so far over the hill no one can hear you no more. This is something B thinks we should embrace…
I don’t know about you, but I remain skeptical. I can envision a big leap into the void with a smile on my face, as long as I land in something soft and warm and smooth and full of light, I’d be good with that.
But Pink, just ‘’letting go’’ I aint there.
So for now I guess we’re stuck with these little bouts of fear.
That’s ok…We’ll figure it out soon enough.
Hey Pink, I had a dream last night about the circus, you ever been to the circus? Mischa got me one of them service dog vests, and we went one time. We dodged all the clowns and the big animals that’s supposed to live in Africa, but instead lives in cages in our country, and went to see the ladies on the trapezeses. I got an eyeful!, I’ll tell ya all about it when I sees ya next.
Anyways, I love hearin from you Pink, but I have to duck out now, there’s a little brown dachshound runnin around the incense cedars, gotta re-route that action.
Your cuzin, Zoe.
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AUGUST 2 DAY 21 ZOE’S MORNING PAGES
OY VEY! HAVE I GOT TSOURIS!
Oh boy, I don't mean OHBOY! I mean
ohboy, like "OY have I got tsouris!" ( that's Yiddish for troubles!)
( don't tell Mischa, cause that happens to be her last name!)
Mischa and B pulled outta here like
bats outta hell this morning. And...I got plucked off the earth by SMcB right
as I was takin a runnin leap into the van! My legs was dangling and I was
swimming in air, it was pathetic. Mischa looked all pathetic too and guilty all
around her edges. Yeah guilty, is right, what's the big idea Mischa?
I don't even know these ladies.
What makes you so sure they got my best interests at heart. I heard them ask
you three times if they could leave me alone in the house. "Oh
yeah,"you says, "she can stay home alone." Like there's nothing
to it. Well big missy know it all, you don't like stayin home alone so much,
what makes you so sure I'd like it?
Remember I'm the one who holds your
hand when you gets them melt downs, usually starts when you is all alone don't
it? I remember, but you forget, convenient eh?
And I already know where you is
going. You're going to that town with the excellent crab cakes and the swell
ipa's that we enjoy on the patio, while B is selling baubles on the sidewalk.
I know and I' m not happy about it.
These ladies could decide to hustle me into their suitcase and fly me back
east. I' m a western dog, gals, a cowgirl and a rabbit russlin squirrel chasin,
coyote lassoing cowgirl, and ain't interested one iota in headin east, anytime
soon.
I go where you go, that's been our
pact, until this morning when I gets snagged by the Irish lady and her Belgium
sidekick.
So then we spend all morning with
our heads in rectangles until one of them yawns real loud and snaps us outta
our deliriums. Btw my rectangle was a nice soft brown blanket my mom left me,
SMcB's was a computerized version, an iPad I think..., and the Belgium had her
head lodged in a crossword puzzle, the whole time... her snout was turned down
and her tongue was lookin like a gherkin.
Then the phone rings and I hear
Mischa's voice on the line squawking about her credit card something or other,
an SMcB starts dartin from room to room askin a long series of questions real
fast like she's gotta get it all out before the whole nine yards blows up from
here to Timbuktu.
Then they starts strategizing about
relays, and I starts thinking... " hey, I'm about to be liberated and
reunited with my real people instead of hangin indefinitely with these
facsimiles.
Next thing I know the Belgium
stuffs a couple old pieces of burrito in my bowl closes all the lights and runs
out the door, locking it behind her. Now I'm inside, there's a thunderstorm
brewin in the distance, my moms are 60 miles away and the facsimiles are gone
too!
" OY vey, tsouris is what I
got and what I want!" Was I scared? Yeah I was scared, I'm not
afraid to admit it, life's crude uncertainties are never reassuring are they?
But I endured, I found a copy of a ram das book on 101ways to visualize
peace...and I took a seat next to my food bowl ( yes the tiny grey metal one,
not the nice ceramic one cuzins Judi and bunny got me in florida) and I started
to pray, meditate, bow my head, squeeze my eyes shut, breathe real slow and
real deep...until I was and wasn't there no more.
Next thing I know...Mischa and B
are standin over me all four of their paws headin for my belly, and we all had
a big bad smile waitin for each other!
The Irish and the Belgium
apparently had flown the coop....and a delicious dinner of crab was had by all.
Alls well that ends well I guess.
Gotta run now, my legs been crossed
since the facsimiles ran out on me during the thunderstorm.
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Day22 Aug.3 Zoes 'Morning Pages
Or DogTricks or The Big Fat Domino Effect
Well zoe zoe cream cream butter better, I guess all that fretting yesterday was in vain. Usually is.
My
mom's did return home and we enjoyed an extended mutual admiration
period, complete with a fine selection of treats, and a small, but tasty
sampling of turkey! (That might have been a bonus leftover from one of
them downstairs visitors, they're apparently carnivore friendly, unlike
some people I know)
I got to sleep in bed last night too, just
like it was winter! I tunneled all the way down to the place where their
back paws live. I curled into a ball and went fast asleep, slept like a
pup too, didn't even get up to bark at the cat, who I knew was out
there by the way...
Then first thing this morning I had a big
surprise. Mischa says when she woke up I was upside down on the floor
next to the bed! She thought I was practicing my yoga! I don't even know
what yoga is really, but I agreed with her, and next thing I know she's
upside down on the floor two! Then B comes outta that meditation room
and finds us two upside down next to the bed, and she don't skip a beat,
she gets down on her knees and tosses her hind quarters straight up in
the air too! Now all three of us are standin on our heads, waving our
paws at each other.
Next thing we know there's a loud knock on the
door, and we're all like, ""you get it", "no you get it!" "No you get
it!" Cause the truth be told we are a pack of old dogs and tryin to
learn new tricks is really no easy feat...none of us knew how to get
down exactly, and no one wanted to admit it.
I couldn't even bark
properly from that position, and Mischa was all huffing and mumbling
about some part of her anatomy not cooperatin. Then ole B says "let's
all roll to the left," like she had a plan. But it turns out she hadn't
really thought it all the way through cause when we rolled, next thing
that happened was what Mischa now calls the Big Fat Domino Effect.
She
says one of them dead republican presidents come up with the idea
originally and it didn't work out too good for the pack who was followin
him neither.
So we all lands on the floor in a pile, fortunately
for me I was the last domino to fall...unfortunately for Mischa, she got
the brunt of the mishap, cause me and B was squishing her real bad. At
least that's what we thought she was sayin...she was growling awful
nasty the whole time we was tryin our best to get off her.
Anyways
we all lived to tell about it, was what B said, and I think Mischa must
a liked the headstand cause I saw her practicing her clarinet upside
down later in the day.
And her mood improved radically too. Also
the rest of the good news is I got to go to work the moms today...and we
had a steady stream of visitors all day long, dropping one tidbit after
the other
right under my nose... Mischa only caught me twice vacuuming up the pulled pork from Johnny Picasso's Barbeque Stand.
And
oh I almost forgot two more things...the lady who saved me from the
ferry belly was there and her friend Ruth asked Mischa for a drawing
of, guess who? Moi! That's cool.
Hey I got go now, B turned out out the lights and keeps shooting me one of them sidelong glances real squinty-eye n all...later!
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AUGUST
4 DAY 23 ZOE’S MORNING PAGES
Information
Highway, or Mischa’s Jogging Jag
Cheez pizza I just remembered
something good! I got a phone message the other day. Mischa didn't tell me
until this morning caus she said it had been stuck in one of her rectangles
since Wednesday. So wow I didn't realize you could get your words all locked up
like they was in jail! So Luna called and he was tryin to visit, but since his
message went to jail, no one ever answered him.
You know, I'm really not sure if
Luna's a boy or a girl. He/she's so busy I just think he must be a boy. Them
boys run around with them inferiority complexes on account a they can't
really reproduce, and so it makes em all darty and pokey and up your b e h i n d
all the time. Well anyways that's one theory...
So, I guess today I'd like to
discuss Mischa's jogging jag. She's been after this now goin on a year and
ahalf a year. In the beginning I was goin with her everyday and the two mom's
routinely pointed while uttering the word svelt down at me.
But as they say things change. I
can't really remember when this happened but I get to go some days and other
days she darts out the door before I know what's happening. (Really I do know,
but I don't have time to tuck my ears back or turn my head from side to
side within eyeshot of her cause she's buzzin around the house too fast.)
And as they say... change is a good thing and a bad thing... like most things seem to
be in this world.
I'll say the bad first. The bad is
I have to stay at home while she's out sniffing a million new messages without
me. I feel left out and isolated at these moments. A dog needs to be in the
know, she needs to stay connected to her tribe, and my tribe leaves plenty a
notes out there for the findin but you gotta be let out to find them! Also my
stomach is starting to blow up again and even strangers now are discussin
propane tanks right I front a me. Some people got no manners is what I say! B
says some people are just straight talkin is all, but me and Mischa thinks its
best if them that's "straight talkin" just kept them blunt,
hard-on-the-ears and
hard–on-the-heart thoughts to
themselves.
Well enough of the bad news it
ain't good to dwell on it...
So here’s the good news and ...I
can't say when it began but ole Mischa ...she done upt the ante on the exercise
jag. So plenty a times we was out there and she had me on a leash (which you
can imagine how that made me feel!) and I'd be all nose to the ground, next
thing I knew she'd be clickin her tongue and yankin on me and she even raised
her voice more than once ..."Zoe let's go Zoooeee comon’ get a move-on
girl!" She'd yell back at me, all the while she'd be like joggin without
goin nowhere's... just hoppin up and down in-place. ( She looked silly but I didn't
say nothin cause I knew I was already on a thin rope, walkin, or something like
that.) Like I said i dont remember when but somewheres along the line, she
actually started to run, and that left me in the literal dust! Honestly this
ole gal can not keep up with her no
more.
So why is this the good news you
might ask. Well now I go out with her if and only if she's fixin on going to
the woods or to the beach, where dogs like me run free. So all in all an
excellent turn of events when you think about it. And just sayin, as much as I
do not DO NOT like water, ( or so I have convinced the moms of this) I LOVE
them fishy smells in the sand, and apparently every dog on the island feels the
same way, because there is such a clutter of messages down there, some days ya
can't get through but a tiny percentage of em.
Mischa says it’s like an
information highway for pups. So now I'm on two highways, cause I got internet
connection wherever I go...and beaches all around me too.
Hey you know I got to mention this
one last thing then I gotta run. I'm supposed to be writin all this out long
hand, but I could not get a good grip on that stick, with my paw, I mean, and
so I kept tryin to adjust it, then pne thing led to another and ....I CHEWED IT!
Mischa wasn't too happy about that, she muttered, but it was under her breath...
and that's when she ran outta the room and came back in with the iPad!
So speaking of stayin connected I'm
gonna go see what them two Brit dogs with the frufru haircuts is up too,
they're my neighbors to the right, later.
Sent from my iPad
Dog Park and a Few Good Friends
Day 24 August 5 Zoe's Morning Pages
Well
Zoe, here we are in a brand new week with a brand new agenda. We're all
tired from sellin baubles at the art show under that tent all weekend.
That's what we do to pay the rent and put the beans on the table! Who
knew beans were that expensive!
Anyways
I heard the moms talkin about that big field in greenbank aka the dog
park... You know I got to admit I have mixed feelins about that place.
Number one is the grass is as tall as Mischa so when she runs ahead I
can see n a d a. Yes yes I can smell her a mile away, nothing
personal Mischa, but I likes to keep one eye glued to the prize, if you
know what I mean. Just makes me feel more secure, and yes I do have
issues with that, and no I am not afraid to admit it.
Second,
since the grass is so high at least once and often more than once while
you're on the walk some big lug of a canine comes boundin through the
grass actin like he's in the deep dark jungle and fixin to desiccate
some unsuspecting gazelle (which would be me). And that is ...s c a r y
...if I could make the letters jiggle and shake while spellin out that
word, I would do that. It's almost s bad as that sound that comes outta
the ferry's belly when you're crossin over to Seattle. Dang that's bone
rattling!
That's what that nice Alberta saved me from last weekend, I just remembered! Thanks lady!
And
third, on the subject of that greenbank field, there's a lot of uphill
time you gotta put in before you get a reprieve and come back down, and
it's like a trick, cause since you can't see nothin causa the height of
the dang grass, you think ''oh a nice leisurely stroll through a
meadow", but then you start into it and next thing you know me and B's
breathin real heavy like. Then we're all jumpin up real high to see if
we can figure out how to getta outta the whole mess real quick. Meantime
Misch'a totally been swallowed up by the thing. I'm telling you it
always looks good on the outside but you get into it and it's underbelly
starts revealing itself. There's a lot of stuff like that in this world
too isn't there.
Like
sometimes them ladies will pull up to the booth with a nice smile on
their face and the moms will have this conversation and everybody laughs
and then the lady will hand over some diner money in exchange for
colored dots and walk away waving and smilin even bigger than she did
when she arrived. But then there is them ladies that pull up and they
got a smile on their face too, so you thinks you can trust em, but next
thing you know Mischa's goin like ''well what about this color?'' and
the lady's up there sayin 'NO!, and then Mischa will go ''OK well what
about this color?''. Then the lady will start looking all dour and say
''NO!" So then B will will say "OK well what about this color?'' 'NO NO
NO" the lady will say and start workin her snout all twisted and gnarly
like. Then this makes the moms start squirming cause they don't know how
to please the lady. So it could go on like that for a long time until
finally Mischa starts to growl and or hiss a little, not too loud, just
enough,, and the lady finally gets the hint... that there is a failure
to communicate... and she moves on. You can see it in her body language
though, she's feelin quite pleased with herself, having reeked a little
havoc in my mom's life.
Cheez,
what is that about? And I know down here closer to the earth, all us
other species we aint immune from that phenomenon either. We see plenty
of pretty packages that turn out to be the devil incarnate. Oh yeah we
do!. Like the other day we was in some 'dog park' in a town called bell
view, yes the one without the view of the bell as mentioned
earlier...,So we're in the park and some picture of pure perfection
comes trottin over to me actin all sweet and unassumin really. So I open
up to her a little and let her sniff around my moustache, then all of a
sudden with absolutely no warnin, she rears up like some mean ole
un-rid un-wed stallion and scares the daylights outta me. I though she
was gonna come down on me with them big sharp paws and make mince meats
outta me. So mischa sees her just in time and leans down to her like she
was gonna bite her, and the dog backs off and scampers away like nothin
happened. Cheez, is all I can say.
I
did have a good day at a dog park once though, so I keep an open mind.
Maybe today will be like that day. We was in Florida I think and through
the grass comes this pekingese, she reminded me of Bean who use to live
with us. Bean and I were sort of married I guess you could say. He was
not the brightest pup in the pen, but I liked him and he liked me. I
used to fetch him by the ear and drag him home for dinner. He didn't
have the same penchant for food as me. Ya wouldn't call him no gourmand,
fur sure. Anyways, one day a fellow showed up in our living room and
petted him for a while until he fell asleep then ole B took him outside
and I never saw him again!
So
as I was sayin I have met a few pups who suits me and who I suits as
well. and a few good friends is all ya really needs anyway, that's what
Mischa says, and I think she read that somewhere, and seems like if its
written down it picks up some momentum in terms of verifiability...
Ok gotta go, them two's in the car and the engines runnin, that's my cue! See ya later.
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Beachwalk or The Miracle In the Oasis
Day 25 August 6 Zoe's Morning Pages
Egad, I guess it’s a good thing…I mean at first I wasn’t exactly sure because they said we was goin to the green bank but at the last minute, Mischa changed her mind. B says Mischa can change her mind at the last minute like 10 or 20 times, without any warnin what so ever! Yesterday B said ‘’it’s terrible frustrating, Mischa!’’ I guess cause we were in two separate cars, somehow it made it all worse. And Mischa jams on the brake and comes to an abrupt halt in the middle of the road for like what B thought was a really really really long time. Apparently Mischa didn’t see it that way cause she just kept right on doin it, being stopped that is. Also she pulled out her little rectangle and started typin on it. Anyways B got so hot about it she starts honkin on her horn….honk honk honk honk honk. Mischa’s nerves was frazzling, at least I thought I heard her say something like that. And of course Mischa starts growling and peers into the side-view mirror. Then ole B pulls her car right into the oncoming lane! This made Mischa real nervy, and me too, we was afraid some day-dreamin clown would round the corner in a jacked up ford and barrel right into her. Mischa and I picture a lot of things like that, its an example of synchronicity I think. Then I accidentally put my right paw on the button that makes air rush in the car, and B’s head pops in the window. Now the three of us is eye to eye to eye to eye to…you get the visual I’m sure…And B says “WHAT IS GOIN’ ON?’’ And Mischa looks up at her like she’s crazy or something and puts this incredulous sounding tone in her voice and says ‘’IT’S HIGH TIED…LET’S GO TO THE BEACH!’’ And I’m thinking ‘’high tied? I hope she aint referring to that rope she attaches to my neck from time to time, cause she ties that up high at the bailey’s corner store so as to keep me from vacuuming too many hot dogs…’’ But then I put two and two together, and realize she’s headin for Maxwelton Beach…
So I think Oy, the beach! Well ok, I’ll go…they know I don’t fancy water too much.. but as I mentioned earlier there are infinite possibilities at the beach especially in the olfactory department. So the good news about the beach yesterday was the tide, not the tied, it was out, and I mean way out. It was practically in Japan, in fact I could see Japan from the water’s edge. I think I saw Sara Palin standin there too, wavin a little flag and pointing to the tiny island way way off in the distance. I listened real hard cause I saw everybody standin there turnin their heads back and forth and lookin at the sky...i thought i heard some chopsticks...mapybe pickin up a nice california rool or something, and some bells and then a drummin sound. i told Mischa and she thought I probably was listening in to Japan, I hope that Snowden guy dont find out! So anyways when the tide is out that far, the beach goes on forever and there are all these pools of water, Mischa calls em oasis, I call them belly-wetters. And I do not like a wet belly, but yesterday I had a sandy, fishy, crab-infested, flea-ridden wet belly the whole dang time we was out there, cause every where you looked there was another one of them puddles and the two mom’s kept being on different sides of them puddles, and me having that latent herdin jean, I had to go through the water, over and over and over again. I did it so many times, it started to become like a new habit, and then something amazing happened…I got to admit it….I started to sorta like it….I think this is an example of evolution!. I mean I been kavetchin about water all my likfe, and I am fifteen years old!
So all of a sudden I am standing there on the beach yesterday, my belly’s soaking wet…and I am grumbling about it to myself, and then it occurs to me…it actually feels good! And then I thought about it a little more and I says to myself ‘’and it actually felt good runnin in and outta them puddles too!’’ I guess that’s why Mischa calls them oasis! I think perhaps I have been in a miracle, or I am a miracle, or life is a miracle, or I discovered that there’s little miracles all around that can sneak right up on ya….I gotta keep my eyes open this could be the beginning of a very good chapter in my life.
Hey I gotta run, all that sun and sand is tiring! I need a nice siesta. Later.
Oh hold up, man, them ladies all came over last night, and Jazz came to, in his sling. Mischa said she thinks Jazzy is a girl dog. I can’t tell cause I can never get a good look down under. Anyways I can’t talk no more right now, but boy did I get an earfull last night. Mums the word on spillin the beans, but just sayin them ladies can talk. I thought my right ear was getting a little loose at one point, coulda lost it you know. I had to bow out every so often to keep my bearins. I needed to get that out…Seems like all us who is invited to the meetin is supposed to talk until ya get whatever is stuck insidea ya up and laid out on the table. Mischa got hers out and set it down right next to the olives and the anchovies. Two of our favorite delicacies! Ok bye for now, Zoe, Roger Zoe….
When Zoe's in a Snit
Day 26 August 7 Zoe's Morning Pages continued
Eeeyew dog, did i wake up on the wrong side of a bed or what?
Seems like every move I make is tweaked in a misguided direction this mornin. First off, no one took me for a walk. No dog park, no beach, no forest, no visit with Clypsy (although they were all mentioned, and I believe, promised as well). Mischa ran right over to the rectangle and went at it for hours and hours. I thought the pads of her paws were bleedin at one point, somethin red got flung acrosst the room. I guess it coulda been one of them sun-dried tomatoes she was chewing on last night when all them ladies was convened in her studio. Or I guess it coulda been one of them fine specimens of a tomato that her friend (and my aunt) Dana sent her in SMcB;s suitcase. She hasnt stopped talkin about em all week, and if anyone dares get near one, there's like a sound of a rabid animal that comes up from her gut! That's what B called the sound once, ''you sound like a rabid (or I guess she coulda said rabbit) animal!'' and when B said that to Mischa, guess what, the sound got really loud and some steam started comin outta somewhere near or on Mischa's body!
Anyways that's not where I was going with this...
but I'm havin a hard time remembering where I was headed.
Oh yeah, gettin up on the wrong side of the bed. Speakin of beds. I use ta sleep in the bed with Mischa, then one day I woke up and found myself at the foot of her bed on an old pink and grey and white striped blanket! I don't know how I got there, nor do I know when or why.. I got banished from the bed. Now I must admit I do get air-lifted every morning for a brief visit, at which time whoever is in the bed does the butter butter cream cream sweetie sweetie sugar....thing, and I get plenty of rubs and scratches while I am belly-up on the nice 1000-count cotton sheets! I suppose I should be grateful, and anyway I do sleep pretty much straight through the night, so I really don't notice I'm on the floor until the morning. Seems like you can get your feelings in a twist real easy these days, don't it?
Mischa hates it when I get in a snit, and I hate it when she does it and she hates it when B does it and B hates it worst of all when Mischa does it. I think on account a she is the elder statesman in the house. Things seem to bother her to the point of needin to talk em all out pretty frequent..like daily, really. When B gets into the snit, Mischa and me go for a ride in the car, sometimes we get chocolate bars. but when Mischa's in a snit, B's more like one of them boy dogs gotta come up real close and starts givin you the once over. Verbally of course! It rubs Mischa the wrong way though. She told me it was cause her words get stuck a lot and she can't get em sorted out too quick, they get like wrapped up in her e-motions. By the way, that is not like e-mail, or i-pad or k-mart its much more serious...Anyways this snit thing seems to get us all in a heap of troubles...and since it is you know who's last name.... it gets her in the biggest heap.
Sometimes I jump into the heap with her and try to make her feel better.
We all got into a major snit today, man o man. I think that lady Elly mighta had a point last night when she started talkin about how them stars is all tangled up right now and just making a mockery of us all down here on the earth! I was just takin a big nap on the black recliner (i dont use the foot part, I aint long enough) and the next thing I know them two is talkin to each other like they's strangers. Worse really like they's strangers who took an immediate dislike to each other! It was not pretty, there was fireworks in the living room for a minute. Then B took off upstairs and me and Mischa was left holdin a dangling participle in the air, cause Mischa didnt really get to finish her sentence! And I was in the middle of askin them ''Hey gals, what's the big idea? Let's all calm this monkey down now!'' and it was right when I was saying the word monkey, that B spins around on her hind legs and takes off! Maybe she thought I was callin her a monkey. I definitely was not! But I could see where she mighta took some kind of offense.
So now I'm in a snit cause B wont talk to me, Mischa's in a snit cause of somethin B said, and B's in a snit because of something Mischa didnt say but implied by growling! Eeeyow like I say, some days ya can't win for tryin and some days ya can lose everything if ya aint careful with them things, which I just recently (on July 12th) acquired...WORDS!
Gotta run, I had to do my own laundry today (go figure!) and I gotta get it off the line!
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WHEN ZOE WAS A POODLE or
Trying on Your Alter Ego
AUGUST 8 DAY 27 ZOE’S MORNING PAGES
Hello self, or what I normally refer to as my self! I woke up with a big problem this a.m. First off, Mischa was movin so fast from room to room with little pieces of paper and shiny circles, that I couldn’t even keep up with her, in fact I got a little dizzy and had to sit down!
Then I closed my eyes for it couldnta been more than a few seconds, and I hear the car crunching the gravel on the driveway! Second day in a row she ducked out without me! I guess she must need some space right now, cause she is sure spendin a lot of time by her self, or what she normally refers to as her self. So yeah I was disappointed, a bit lonesome, you might say I was even a tad in the dumps...and yes I can hold a grudge if needs be. In this case though I dont think it would work out too good, cause everyone in the house is still in one kind of snit or another leftover from yesterday. I didnt really know snits could get left over. I know all about day-old beans and such, but not day-old snits, that’s a new one.
Gettin back to my original point though, I been wondering just what is it that makes up a self, and once its all made up, can you make it over, or are you just stuck with it no matter what? So I been thinkin every now and then, about being in a poodle dogsuit instead of my own blackandwhite and brown jack russel/???? dogsuit.
You might ask why I been thinkin this. Well pretty often I overhears people and my moms included, sayin ‘’them poodles is s m a r t! I think there is someone in there! I mean besides just a dog!’’ And you know when I hears this, I do get a little miffed, cause it sorta implies that a little mutt like me is one thing but a P O O D L E is a canine of a different order. I know what the mom’s are thinkin, ‘’A poodle...now you’re talkin, now ya got somethin really special there!’’ And they aint alone...I heard plenty of other people second and third and fourth that sentiment. And further more, when they do second that sentiment, their heads is bumpin up and down real fast like them baseball player bobbleheads B got on her dashboard.
So let’s just think for a minute, if I was to be a poodle, I could figure out lottsa stuff that is now zoomin straight over my head. Like when I was tryin to see if Luna was drivin that car, and I couldn’t jump high enough to get a good view...being a poodle woulda solved that cause a poodle woulda just found a way to jump up on something real high, like on top a persons head for example. Yeah a poodle would land on a persons head cause then she’d be right up there around the eyes and she’d have a very good view from there. Also if she could be on her mom’s head, then when her mom and she was not seein eye to eye, she could jump on up and try to get a look from there, and most likely they’d put the whole argument behind emselves.
Ya know this line of thinkin has some merit...
I remember B sayin ‘’Can you see my point of view?” and Mischa sayin ‘’No” and B gettin all hot about it and Mischa gettin all dug in around the heels about it. But now if them gals got emselves some alter egos, god things could come to pass.
I mean B gets her self an alter ego that looks and sounds and walks and talks and thinks a lot like Mischa, and Mischa does the same, them two’d be in perfect harmony. It be like me bein a poddle and standin on Mischa’s head lookin back at little jack russel mutt Zoe and seein what Mischa sees. Wow, this is big really. I got to find a way to let them know. These here morning pages is helping me be more a like one of them big beautiful smart poodles everybody’s talkin about.
So now I think I am answerin my own question...I think a self can change, I think it can change in any direction you point it in, ya just got to go find your self and point it!
Ok this mornin Mischa promised we was goin to the little forest next to the school where I tasted the dead rabbit that the big dog had been eatin before his dad caught em. Gotta go.
OMG I almost forgot...it’s my aunt Dana’s bday, shout out to you ole aunt Dana wherever you are, although I’m pretty sure you’re in pixburg unless yous up in them mountains with the redhead who has the stick and the bad dog-defense outfit!
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CUTTIN IN
AUGUST 9 DAY 28 ZOE’S MORNING PAGES
or The Awakening
It were a seafarin day for this old salt. That’s what ya say when ya take the ferry acrosst to the other shore! I think yer suppose to grow a beard too, but I’m over that part. I do like the boots and the hat Mischa let’s me wear sometimes when we make the crossing. She knows it still scares me a little, that belly roarin thing it does. So it’s my consolation prize. Really it’s not so bad on the top deck, but if I play into it, she pulls out the chest-full of dress-up costumes and let’s me have my way with em. Some days we play greek priest and baptize something like a fake bunny. Some days we play school teacher, I’m usually the student but occasionally I get to wear glasses and be the teacher. Today we played pirates and I got a sword, but I had to put it away when the dog- sniffin policeman came by. Mischa said she dint want to raise no suspicions cause she couldnt remember what state her licenses was in, or something like that. Plus she said ‘’ya never know if there’s contraband in the car!’’ I have no idea what she meant by that, but I know we use ta have a couplea cats...
Mischa got up with the sun this mornin so we hate our breakfasts while dawn was still tyrin to remember her name. I loves gettin an early start on breakfast, this insures and extra biscuit or two throughout the day. And I already knew we were going to get to at least one of them windows where the lady’s head pops out and a tasty morsel is slung my way.
We didnt go for no forest walk though we just took a jog down the road. So that had its usual drawbacks cause I’m too old to be out there at 6AM jogging like a young pup. And Mischa is too but she is reluctant to admit it, so I get a little drug around. She dont see it that way though she thinks I’m holdn her back. I feel like I’m puttin the whole running thing in perspective for her, so as she dont git hurt. Whatever, she took me and we went and she burned 200 calories and I did too, which makes room for a lot o tasty treats. PS we have an iphone and it keeps track of everything, does all the calculations too! And that’s a good thing since neither of us is too good at artithmatic, especially me.
When we got home Mischa took one of them baths where you stand up and let the water hit you in the muzzle. Why they like that I will never understand....
So then we all rush around in a few concentric circles tryin to locate phones and keys and my service dog jacket so we can get into the car and get to the ferry so we can get to our destination, which was a dark tunnel under a tall building! And where, I Zoe Haughton Tsouris was left unattended for one hour, IN THE DARK!
Lifs is one big roller coaster when you’re not in control and when you dont know exactly where you’re goin at any given minute. I told Mischa this and she said ‘’Zoemou ‘’(that’s my Zoe, in greek in case whoever reads this may have forgotten, course no one’s supposed to read this so, nevermind). ‘’ Zoemou’’ she says to me. ‘’Life is a roller coaster and no one is in control and no one ever knows exactly where they’re headed at any given minute, this is just how it is!’’ And I looks up at her with the incredulous-look puppy eyes that I can get on if needs be and say, ‘’Are you kiddin me? No one’s in control? That’s anxiety provokin! No wonder everybody’s in a snit all the time, we’re all SCARED!’’ I guess we gotta figure out some way to let this spooky little fact of life, be not so spooky, don’t we.
Anyways I got an excessive amount of pets when they got back into the car. They kept tappin each other on ther shoulder so as I got passed between em over and over. Mischa kept sayin ‘’excuse me, may I cut in?’’ One was more gushy than the next, I was soakin it up. Then B let me sit on her lap and look out the window! I did it until we got on the road where everybody has to go 100 miles an hour for some reason. That’s when I gotta put my head back in so as it don’t get blown off down the highway, which is what Mischa says will happen if I keep it out there too long. So we hustled ourselves back home.
Now here’s a cool thing! While we was waitin on that ferry, Mischa goes out and catches a halibut, fries it up and also somehow got her hands on potatoes and a few clams too! Wow I didn’t know vegans ate fishes, it musta been a vegan holiday. It sure was another lucky day for me.
Speakin of luck though, and control and knowin what’s headin your way n all...my cousin Nick called and he aint gettin his share of the luck this week. He had to go to the doctor and the doctor had to deliver to him and to his mom, (which is my mom’s sister) some bad news. Nobody went into any details with me, but I could hear em on the phone and Mischa’s sniffer was twistin one way and then another. Then water was squirtin out her cheeks, cause one drop fell right in my eye! Man Nicko I hope this whole thing blows over cause this is a lot of e-motion comin outta everyone on account of you and that doctor visit.
So as far as I’m concerned all this has come as a big shock to me. In fact I gotta say this is a kind a wake up moment for me. I thought somebody was in control of all this, and I thought, at least Mischa, mighta known what was comin round any given corner, so as we all had a heads up. But I comes to find out , no, it aint like that, and now my cousin’s got a big dose of it right in front of him. Unpredictable, outta control roller coaster.
This is my current working definition of life. I hope to be able to revise this upward to a more positive light. But I got a lot to learn before I do.
Gotta go, them geese is migratin and everybody’s outside pointing up. Mischa’s got her hands cupped around her ears so she can hear em flappin, I like that sound too, better go get some. Later.
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Dog to Dog
Conversations
And/or The Day Zoe Got
Banished from the Queendom
AUGUST 10 DAY
29 ZOE’S MORNING PAGES
Dear cuzzin Zoee,
So how many smart poodles do you
know? I only know one poodle and he was special needs. I don't know if he was
smart but he sure dint have no hospitality and I woont want to be a poodle.
Don't them have to go get baths and blow dries?
And about alter egos: I think yous
onto something. A while back I changed my name to Tex for a week or so.
Is you a widow?
Signed…Pinky
Pink
This
is a big pile of questions and I’m gonna go right down the list.
1.
I know a lot of poodles, the B’s in Albuquerque have a big black one, the lady
who comes here and organizes all a Mischa’s paints n stuff got a big white one,
there’s one lives at Roxy and Laura’s house-its a real little one. Ya know Pink
there’s so many poodles in my life it’d take me forever to list em all. And they
come in a million colors too! All them ones I know has top honors in the smarts
department, so I can’t speak to the one you know who has the special needs.
Remember, there aint no predictin nothing in this place.
2.
On the alter egos, wow, wow. You was Tex?
Tell more sistah!
3.
Is I a widow? Well yes I is, cause you know dogs can get married in the United
States. It makes my moms awfully sore too, cause they been a couple for 20
years almost, and they aint allowed to get married, but we are! Go figure that
one out, eh! So yes me and bean
was married. We didnt have no children though on accounta he had something
snipped and so did I!. Not sure what that was, but no puppies ever appeared, no
matter what act we decided to perform. Course we didnt really go in for no
Comma Sutures or nothin like that.
Well
I gotta get into my own head now cause I had a big problem today! Well it was
this evening really, but I think maybe it all got started early on. Basically I
think all problems follow ya straight outta the birth canal.
Then
they just dog ya, excuse the expression, for the rest of your dang life!
So
first off the two mom’s was cleanin and cleanin that apartment like usual. I’m
used to it now, even the vacuum don’t scare me no more. I gets on that nice
leather sofa and I watch them goin back and forth. And I starts hearin some
guys voice sayin ‘’yar gettin sleepier and sleepier…” and next thing is, I’m
snorin. Then what seems like forever goes by and I get woke up with Mischa
yellin at me to get on outta there. She’s all actin like she didn’t know I was
in there or something. Doesn’t she keep an eye on me at all times? She really
should, she said she would…
Then
I comes to find out they been moppin! So I gotta walk through water! Ah well, I
did it in a hurry, caus a all the words which was headin in my direction. All
comein I might add offa Mischa’s flappin tongue!
Anyways
there was people in and outta here all day, my nerves was shot by the enda the
day. We even had a double visit from the under 6 crowd from next door. Hey
they’re cute, and Mischa and B adore them, but me, ya know, not so much… The
under 6 crowd can flip me right on over the edge.
And
so it is in that context that I present the facts of my case. It was later in
the evening about 8ish I’d say.
There
was cats fightin outside, some coyotes goin at it in the distance, and then
these other unidentifiable high pitched whining sounds. On and on it went like
this. So then, up the driveway! Comes a car! It is known pretty much worldwide,
that a car in the driveway of a dog and her family, is the sole responsibility
of said dog. And my responsibility is…to alert the family as to the presence of
the car, its speed and its contents. The smells emanating from its interior are
to be described in as much detail as is discernable from my perch…on the sofa.
So,
just sayin, I jumps to attention, gets myself on high alert and performs my
duties! I starts to bark and youda thought the world was rushing to an abrupt
end, cause as soon as I get good and loud so as everyone can hear me…Mischa
starts yellin my name real loud from the other room. And I’m thinking ‘’hey
you’re given away my location, to the perspective enemy home invader!’’
Then
I had such good momentum I really couldn’t put the brakes on the barking so next
thing ya know I hear Mischa’s desk chair go rollin across the floor real fast.
Clomp clomp clomp clomp clomp and before I knows it, she’s bearin down on me,
with this terrifying look in her eye. Well I jumped down off that sofa and got
as low down to the ground as I
could and looked up at her with the frightened puppy face. That put a halt to
the ‘’Zoe NO, Zoe NO NO NO”, real quick. So just when I’m thinking ok she’s
over it, I can resume and get my last barks in while these prowlers is makin
their way up the drive, low and behold..I’m up in the air! And she aint wastin
no time either. She runs me up the steps and dumps me in my bed! I’m talking 8 o’clock people! No
popcorn, no cookie, no butter butter cream cream sugar sugar sweetie… nothing,
door closes, and she’s gone!
I
aint never been sent to my room before!
It
was like getting banished from my own queendom!
My
feelins is hurtin real bad. I;m not sure how I am going get over this exactly.
I got my hopes up for Mischa to swing open that door any minute now and say
something like ‘’April fool’’ or
‘’Sike” or ‘’ Oh Zoemou,
darling, sweetheart, best of the best dogs in the universe, of course I’m not
angry with you, of course I still love you, of course I would never abandon
you.”
Times
a wastin, Mischa tic tick tock…ya comin?
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Pointin the Finger
AUGUST 11 DAY
30 ZOE’S MORNING PAGES
Well
alls well that ends well. However, as soon as you get to the good ending whatever wasnt going so good rolls back
in like a big fog. That’s not unlike the one that comes acrosst the sound.
Mischa got stuck in that fog at the beach the other day. When she left here it
was all sunny and warm, then she gets down to the beach, which is within
spittin distance, and it’s like she’s in heaven, except she wasn’t, cause she
was freezin!
Anyways
the good news is Mischa did open that door last night and she got down on her
knees, practically on her belly really and started rubbin me all over and
bathing me in love! So whatever it was that had fallen between us somehow evaporated
in the time between the airlift and her bedtime. I can’t remember really what
it was. Mischa says this tendancy runs in our side of the family. Somthin big
happens and emotions fly all over the house then in about an hour somebody,
like B maybe, taps you on the shoulder and says, ‘’now lets talk about that’’,
and we’re like, ‘’about what?’’
Not cause we’re tryin to be smart alexes. It’s just cause a our jeans, we simply do not
remember. We are on to the next thing, and in a good mood too to boot! This
makes certain people crazy, I can sorta see why it would.
So
Mischa puts me up in the bed with her for the whole night! And it was a good
thing too cause one of them lightening thunder storms came rushin through,
without any advanced notice, I might add. Took us all by surprise. So I just
got real down deep into the covers so as nothing could find me till it was all
done rattlin and boomin. Mischa’s mom said ole god was movin his furnishings
around when it thundered like that and I said ‘’ Yikes what’s he got up there
for furnishings, giant bowlin alleys?
That’s a lot of racket for one ole guy to make!”
Then
this morning, first thing, me and B look out the window and what’s in the yard,
except them dang chickens again! They was runnin all over the place flappin and
peckin and squakin.
B
says ‘’we got new chickens?’’
Mischa
says ‘’yeah, aint they cute?’’
And
then B says ‘’I thought we weren’t going have no more chickens for a while.”
And
Mischa she just smiles and eats her cereal and drinks the coffee and stares out
the window at the birds like they is all her sweet little babies.
If
I could weigh in here I think B was askin for both of us cause, I don’t like
them chickens one bit. There was one who was friendly but that was it! They’d see me comin and they’d start
plottin against me. They’d peck round my toes, or even my tail! That big rooster he use ta come at you
like he was a bull or something, I guess he didn’t have no mirror in that hen
house. He wasnt no fun for
anybody, especially them hens!
Then
B’s eyes narrow a bit, I wouldnt say it was her most ferocious look, but it was
headin in that direction.
‘’Mischa
who is goin take care of those chickens when we we’re away?”
And
then ole Mischa lays her cards down on the table.
She
tells B ‘’don’t worry...they’re just on loan for a week or two.” “I didn’t mean to scare guys. I didn’t
realize how you felt.”
And
this is when me and B gets right on top of it and tells Mischa how we kept it
all inside all them years she had them chickens in the yard. Caus a how much
she loved them ole chickens. and trained them all to do tricks, we never let on
that we did not fancy them hens. Then Mischa looks all amazed, stuck somewhere
between delighted and worried. Finally the thick air in the room starts thinnin
out and Mischa jumps up and makes everbody a piece of toast with peanut butter
on it, a big bowl of fruit all colorful and shiny and I think she even snuck a
goat cheese on the plate, vegan or no vegan.
Then
B says ‘’huzzahh!” half on account
a the pretty food and half on account a we could all breathe easy again.
One
more thing, though. Me and Mischa saw somethin amazin today when we was runnin.
A little teeny weeny chipmonk, with one of them racing stripes down her back
was playin possum in the middle of the trail!
And
Mischa puts her hand out to stop me in my tracks, cause I wasn’t really lookin
ahead. I had my nose on a real
spicy line of conversation two ole dogs left behind.
And
then I sees what Mischa sees, this little chippie’s holdin somethin in her
snout!. And we’re all, ‘’don’t them chipmonks eat nuts and berries?” Then we
looks closer and sees she’s got one a her babies in her mouth!
When
we came home B said, maybe she was movin her nest around, like spring cleanin
sort of, without the vacuum, I would hope! Anyways she finally realized we weren’t
eatin her for protein, even though we coulda... and she darted back into the
woods with that baby dangling from her proboscis! That’s my new
w
o r d for the day. And speakin of
days....
Gooday
to ya Jack (that’s one a my nicknames!)
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Orderly
Squawking
and Zoe Ate My
Homework!
Monday August
12 Day 31 Zoe’s Morning Pages
Sunday
was something! I went for a run and ran right into that white poodle who comes
to the house. That was asurprise and a shock first thing in the morning.
She
was minding her manners in the forest though, I got to hand it to her. Not one
snip! We both just had a quick whiff and got on with our herding duties.
Mischa
was happy to meet her friend cause
she was bored with the running thing, and she had decided we was goin for a
real long run this morning, but meetin the friend slowed us down and the plan
got its tail cut off it or somethin like that. Maybe the plan got its tail curled. I cant remember. Anyways
we was headed to the county fairgrounds afterwards, on accounta we signed up to
do our community service for the year. I dont think we commited any crimes, but
I’m not sure. I think we signed up out the goodness of our hearts.
Mischa
got a great job, she said. She got to hang all the kids artwork on one side of
the room. Mischa loves kids’ artwork (for the most part). Anyway the room was packed with people carrying
and calling out and hammering and climbing up on ladders. It was exciting, and
I got a lot of attention, several pets, and a few treats that was mysteriously
lodged in some man’s coat pocket. Cause he acted all surprised when he yanked
it outta there.
Some
lady brought in a dog they called a granddeatpuppy who was the size of new
jersey! Egad, 8 months they said she was, and goin on 120 pounds. She tried
sniffin me but I kept a dachshund’s length between us just for good measure.
I
was real hungry when I first got in there on accounta all that exercise we had.
So I was checkin the perimeter for whatever, and all of a sudden I found my
self right next to Mischa, who had her full focus on them kids’ drawings. And
there was this real low shelf there, and on the shelf was some thing that
looked like a butterfly except it was in real bright colors and it smelled
tasty. So I real quietly and tenderly removed it from the shelf in order to get
a better nose on it. I couldn’t resist it, it tasted like bread dough, and I
loves bread dough. Then all of a sudden I hear Mischa gasping right over my
head. She leans down and swipes the thing right out from under me! ‘’Zoe” she
starts hissin ‘’what’s the matter with you? That’s some kid’s art project your
eating!”
I
thought she was goin get real mad and growl, but I think there was so many
strangers in the room, I got spared this time. Some lady ran over to see what
was going on and Mischa started to spill the beans, and the lady started to get
miffed, but then Mischa started side-steppin the issue while tap dancing, and
somehow it all got swept under the counter.
Anyways
her friend Hazel was there and they were actually laughin about the butterfly
after a while. Then they satred talkin about them geese again. I think we’ll never hear the end of the geese
thing. But Hazel thought it was pretty cool and she never was underneath no
migratin V-formation herself. So she was askin all kinds of questions about the
flappin wing sounds. And me and Mischa was providin her with as much detail as we could. Ya know
Hazel’s a writer! So when she starts askin questions... look out, its gonna be
a long day!
Well
nothing much else to report today, vini vidi vitchi, or something like that.
Mischa says the romans ( who stole all the cultures from the greeks, who was
the original tribe, and then couldnt make no more yogurt) use that expression a
lot, cuase they was the conquerin sort. It means: I came I saw I conquered. And
for me, that sums up my unbelievably fortuitous find at the county fair!
Gotta
run, I think Mischa’s gonna practice that sax inside. I gotta go find a nice
hedge to crawl under. Later.
MISCHA + Z O E
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THE SHADOW!
August 13 Day 32 Zoe’s Morning Pages
Hey Zoe, you gotta get a grip on you self girl.... I says to my self. I don’t know why it happens,
but it’s the little things that scare me.
Mischa says it’s the exact same way for her.
I mean if the house should spontaneously combust, we could deal with it. When them hurricanes twirl in off the Atlantic Ocean, it don’t bother us none. Earthquakes? Been there, done that, we say. Blizzards?
Well ole Mischa’s been through plenty, me just one but it was in the middle of the Rockies so I think it counts for more. Plane crash? Well I might have to draw the line there... I hates, flyin!
But what I’m gettin at is this. I was just out in the garden with Mischa the other day, and I was takin a nap and she was tying up them big tall plants which looks like they wannta take over the world...and all is going real nice and calm. Then all of a sudden I wake up with a start and I look over at the side of the house
and I leaps up into the air! Same time I leap, she leaps! And on the way down we looks over at each other tyrin to figure out what happened. Turns out we both thought we saw this huge grey rabbit looming over us!
But you know what? It was just a shadow of this baby bunny that snuck in! I mean, people, this is embarrassing. I am so glad I have some way to vent this, in private! This happens to us a lot. Shadows scare us. Sometimes Mischa’ll be like washin her face in the sink
and she’ll all a sudden jump up a few feet off the ground and then when she comes down I usually fly up from the impact! Next thing I know after she’s all done breathin heavy... she starts starin into the sink and laughin! Why? Cause it was her own self’s shadow in the sink that had her all scared. Sometimes our own friends’ll come in the room and we don’t hear them, and we’ll all a sudden see something in the edge of the eye and up we go! Even my tail twitchin scares me, some days. And that dang phone of Mischa’s starts talkin in her pocket all the time and it scares the heck outta both of us! Yesterday some lady from down under was yakkin away in Mischa’s pocket about some mob of joeys who was hoppin real fast down a city street and turned into this alley way. All a sudden they was stompin all their hind legs on the ground like they was one of them Japanese drummin bands. Turns out them kangaroos cant hop backwards and they had got themselves stuck in the alley! Anyways, all that was comin outta her pocket, and yes it made us anxious.
Mischa says she gets scared if her belly growls! I wonder if she thinks somebody’s in there tryin to get out? My belly don’t scare me none, I just go get a quick snack when it starts up any sorta conversation. I suggested that to Mischa but she muttered somethin about our waistlines explodin or somethin like that.
Now that would make me terrible nervous, if my waistline exploded, in fact just thinkin about that one scares me.
Speakin a just thinkin, I think maybe these pages makes ya think more than ya really should about some stuff.
Maybe some stuff’s best left un-think, un-spoken, and un-written down. It’s like mind clutter aint it?
But then again I guess that’s why I’m writin these mourning pages, so as I sweep the clutter out every day and get on with just being! Mischa says that’s with a big B. And she also said I could use that pretty broom our friend Scout painted for us. That should help with the ardous task of the daily sweep.
Hey gotta split, some guy’s dumpin a load of little sticks in the yard. Curious noses need to snoop in on that action.
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Day 33 August 14 Service Dog? What Service, Dog?
Zoe's Mourning Pages
Gday Matey, I say to my self, but I question that...
Mischa says I wake up with joy in my heart every single morning. I admit, it feels good and comes natural, but ya know right after breakfast I sinks into the dumps a little and starts thinkin about things. Like right now I’m thinkin about that guy who yanked my leash yesterday real bad. And ya know what, it wasnt the first time either.
I sees this guy at the gas station and he looks way down at me and is all like ''Your a service dog, eh?"
''Exactly what service could a little mutt like you be performin?" Then he adds the insult to the injury and, laughs!
‘’Ya know buddy them’s fightin words!’’ I wanna say but I really can’t. If I could I would add, ‘’Let me just ‘splain a few facts of life to ya. First off, my mom's an artist. That should be explanation enough, but I'll elaborate.
I realize some folks have a big concrete barrier between the outside of their skull and the grey matter that's suppose be figurin things out. Like in your case buddy, are you asleep at the wheel? We dog's never do that ya know, we’re never really sound asleep, we are awake, even when we’re asleep! And that is why, this here pup is a prime example of a workin breed, and my work puts me in the service of my mom who has some issues that needs to be watched over by an alert, good natured, handsome, obedient, intelligent, dutiful, in earnest, vigilent pup like me!”
“Just sayin, if ya gonna discuss my ability to perform...better check your own control panel first bub!” Man that sounds mean spirited dont it. I can lose my temper around know-it-alls that is for sure.
Now where was I... Oh yeah when it comes to needin’ service, seems like artists are pretty much on the top of the list in the needs department. They are sensitive! It’s really true, I can attest to it, I seen them break downs they have and it is not pretty. They shake sometimes, just like I do when someone sticks me on the car deck of the ferry! That’s when I needs service! So that’s my priority service department, we call it breakdown assistance, its kinda like AAA service, Mischa says, but for the nerves.
Anyways I got lists and lists of things I do for my mom which has won me the honor of wearin this here jacket.
Like passenger assistance, is one service I perform.
I make sure whoever is travelin with us has direct access to my entire body. Them bi-peds take great comfort in touchin dogs especially when the dog positions herself in the middle of a lap!
And then there is navigatin, which I do quite a lot of when I am alone with either of my mom’s. I gets the passenger seat all to my self and I keep a good lookout. Mishca has all the latest navigatin technology but she knows I am able to get much more real with my nose, so I am her go-to navigator fur sure.
I get to perform what we call window hopping a lot when we’s in the city. My job is to spring up high enough to check on the lines at my mom’s favorite cafes.
This saves her time and therefore we get to the lunch faster, so this service serves us all.
I also got the visitin duty which usually involves a car trip to somebody’s house that enjoys our company. And once we’re in there I guard the perimeters. Also I can do some discrete vacuuming, so its like I do double duty on these outings.
I also have been used on many occasions to do rescue service. My mom often she gets lost in the woods. And yes I mean this literally and figuratively. So my nose and keen insticnts extracts her sets her back on the right path.
I don’t want to go on and on cause I could but it is gettin a little tirin on my end, so I will just list this one last service and that is as art and music critic, but I only do this when asked, of course.
Let me tell you something though, it aint just me that does the service. All dogs do service cause all dogs is buddhists, and that’s what we buddhists do. Remember what dog and god have in common! Them letters is all the same and all lower case to boot. So we are for you.
And we loves locusts pedals too! I just made that up, cause I liked how it sounded.
Mischa says since we are artists we have some sort of special dispensation from god. Then I says, ‘’Hey Mischa, we are god, remember!”
Also in case I’m forgettin, I got to give props to ole B who performed a great service the other day, when Mischa saw a mother goat being attacked, I hate to tell ya Pink, she was bein attaked by a renegade pitbull! That ole B made Mischa slam on them brakes, I almost went into the next dimension! B jumps out the car, leaves the door hangin wide open! Then she leaps over the electric fence and grabs a big stick. She goes over to that pitbull, nabs his collar, and pulls him off the goat. The goat runs off all limpin andshe was not in good shape. The goats mom and three little kinds was up on the hill jumpin and clappin and screamin down thank yous and bowing to B.
The dang pit he starts waggin his tail like nothing happened. I half think he believed the applause was for his performance. Well I will tell you it was NOT. It was for B, who is my hero, and performed a life saving service. So I guess what I’m gettin at here is that we is all in this big service arena together. I hope someone is watchin over us all, cause I sure would like to accumulate a few points for the good works thats gettin done. Points gets biscuits biscuits make for happy pups and happy pups make for better service. One big beautiful circle, aint it!?
Well gotta go, them ladies from nebraska is headin out and I gotta check on the leftover situation! Later.
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UPHILL BATTLE
Day 34 Thursday August 15 Zoe’s Morning Pages
Hey hello. I overheard some potentially great news last night. Skagit Farmers in Freeland's got free hot dogs all day long! That’s on the to do list for this morning.
Early morning! I could go for a little beef after that workout Mischa put me through yesterday. She must be havin a mid-life crisis or somethin. But really I think she's too old for that. It's getting to be like boot camp out there. Now instead a just runnin on the level like we use ta do in the great flat state of florida, she's got me runnin straight up them hills. She says we’re in the great pacific northwest land of snow-capped mountains and and if ya got mountains ya gotta climb em. You know I think I should mention to her that all this exercise is not really makin much of a dent in the ole waistline if that's what we're suppose ta be after, which I am pretty sure is the plan. Hey Mischa don't look now but we both got them bulgin bellies, sorry to break it to you so bluntly. She had me goin up and down one steep and perilous cliff after another. I'm starting to think she thinks I'm really a goat or something. I heard her call me a gotsiki more than once. She don't think I speak Greek, but I got a dictionary now! I know what's she's sayin!
I think she was tryin to get somethin outta her system with all that uphill trauma she put me through. I ain't gonna take it personal. But except for the fact that there is always a possibility of free food en route, I might consider bein a bit more discriminatin about just leapin into that car in the morning. I should be able to tell by now when the foul mood is settin in upon her and she might be feelin the need to just run it off. On those days I could politely beg off the ride. She'd be ok with that, I could pull out the old-dog-face ( ears back and puppy eyes on), or the I-gotta-spend-time-with-B-this-morning face, or I could simply make myself scarce when she reaches for the car keys. I am a little like ole Pavlov's dog with them keys though. I gotta work on that.
I know fur sure one bad thing that happened yesterday. Mischa had the bright idea to cook up some smelts she bought at the fish store. I didn't know fish lived in a store really I thought they lived on the water, but I'm learnin new things all the time despite my advanced age. Anyways she comes home with these fishes, and she tells B she's gonna cook em up. Then she gets em all lined up in the pan, and I notices she's gettin kinda woozy or somethin. She starts waving like a flag in the wind! She kept callin them smereethes she said that's Greek for smelts, cause if you say it in Greek, it's a little less likely to freak ya out. It's like havin a second cousin once removed. He's far enough away that if somethin happens to him, you might not go immediately into a morbid depression. I think I'm gettin off the beatin track, or however you say that.
Anyways she thought maybe if she cut their heads off it'd be easier to look at them and get em in the oven. I sure woulda liked that! She called out the window to B and said "B I don't think I can eat these!" And the ole B tells her it's ok, like she gives her the go-ahead ...remember now we're vegans, and we don't eat no animals. Fishes is animals, right? So I'm not really sure how the little smelts got into our bag at the store in the first place. Now we is faced with a big dilemma. The house smells like the Dead Sea. I got a little saliva comin outta my mouth in expectation, and Mischa is about to get sick cause she feels so bad about the Dead-Sea-fish.
Then I hear her, calling out the window again to B and says " I can't do it B!" And then real fast like almost before Mischa had the entire sentence outta her mouth B says, " bring em out we'll fertilize the maple tree, I'll get the pick axe!"
So at this point I was real disappointed cause my lunch was about to be buried. Also I felt real bad for Mischa cause she had been kinda rosy brown lookin and the all a sudden she was more like a green color.
But gettin back to the uphill battle we waged yesterday in that park, I think Mischa was just tryin to get that lapse in judgment outa her head and outta her body. She just kept muttering about the poor fishes till I thought both me and B were gonna scream " enough already!"
B said "honey you can moan about that till the cows come home, but it ain't gonna change nothin, just forgive yourself and thank the fishes and let's enjoy our lunch."
Now I am wondering, are we gettin cows now. We just got rid of all them chickens, I'm not sure I like cows....
Hey got to go, hot dogs are callin out my name, and no I am not ashamed one tiny little bit, a girl's gotta eat don't she?
B- bye!
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OBSESSION
Day 35 Friday August 16 Zoe's Morning Pages
Zoe Zoë Zoë, what am i going to do with my self? I can’t stop diggin up that dang rawhide scrap of a no-good, useless, mealy, limp, poor excuse for a bone… bone. Mischa says I’m developin a nervevoice habit. Or it may have been a halibut, I’m not sure. I think halibuts got them too-tiny-to-mess-with bones. Anyways, she says she knows when I am about to start that incessant diggin thing cause I gets this real dog-on-the-dinner-table look in my eye and this real thin like whine starts oozing outta me somewhere, she’s not exactly sure if its comin outta my snout or not. Just sayin. Also she says I dash around in a circle four or five times and then next thing ya know I’m diggin furiously, all four paws and my nose is at it. What am I lookn for? What am I lookin for? I do not know. But Luna says her mom golfs and if I was to do on the golfcourse what I been doin to my own yard, I’d be banned forever from the greens. Hey Luna, I don’t mean to be snide or nothing but, I aint real fond a greens anyway. I do think I catch your drift though…I’m makin a mess! I’m makin a mess and then other people are fallin into the mess and getting all tripped up.
And its all my fault!
You don’t think this is anxiety provoking, well you got more thinks ahead a ya then. Twitchy I feel twitchy. Good thing I don’t have any licenses for them firearms, I’d be mighty dangerous. I only carry a gun when I am a cowgirl, and don’t let on, but its not real!
Think Zoe Think, go deep, look inside…what is bothering you? Why do you need to dig up and bury and dig up and bury the bone…for hours at a time?
Well one thing that bothers me real bad is when them short bipeds come runnin at me and screamin at the top of their lung capacity, their hands are all out in front of their bodies wigglin and pointing in my direction! That gets me going. I start headin fast for the buried bones. The little bipeds lose interest in me, and the surge of terror begins to dissipate into the mounds of dirt I extract.
And another thing gets me diggin, is that hose. I don’t care for it one bit. One time B was talking and not lookin where she was hosin, next thing I knew someone asked her a question and she twirled around real quick and shot that dang hose right into my eye! I thought I’d been blinded! I got my nose down to the ground real quick and just dug and dug and dug until my eyesight came back to me… it was like a miracle really.
Mischa says she starts diggin up bones too when she gets real nervevoice. Her nervevoice comes when somebody starts askin a whole series of questions in a
Gaitling gun kinda way. She says her brain don’t work fast enough and she gets all flustered. Also she says her bones are worse than my bones. Her bones are the skeletal structures of her own self’s actions and the ones of which she aint too proud. Them be hard bones to dig up wouldn’t they. When ya get em up all ya would want ta do with them is bury them back real fast. She says I just can’t do that every single time. She says sometimes I got to get one a them bones and be like a dog with it. She says I gotta follow it around until I am the bone! What the hey are you talking about madam? I don’t think she was makin reference to themiss congeniality movie with Sandra Bullock and Michael Caine, but I could be mistaken.
Well I don’t do it everyday. Dig up them bones. I could go ayear or more without even thinking about them bones. And yes I know I know I didn’t even blink about them until the white poodle started showin up, I already admitted that didn’t I? Welll it’s reassuring to know that Mischa has the same obsession, and I am not alone. This gives us both great solace in a time of deep discomfort.
And speak of discomfort…I’m starving! I think I could talk Mischa into a little late morning snack, gotta give it a try anyway. Hey I’m like a dog with bone about that, am I not, and aint I a dog? Later.
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CIRCLE OF EVENTS or Gettin Your Power Back
Day 36 Saturday August 17 Zoe's Morning Pages
Well Zoemou another day another dinner, as they say.
I been after mischa for my breakfast since 5AM when we popped outta bed for some unknown reason. She said I needed to check my watch. “It’s too early, Zoe” she says “gotta wait until you got an exclamation point on that watch face!”
“A what?” I asked her. “Can I get in the back of this thing and move them arms along?”
“Zoe, no Zoe, you have to wait, its too early!”
I hear that no Zoë thing a lot. I am startin to feel like I am not in charge around here. In fact I know I’m not in charge! But I don’t think they gotta rub it in all the time.
I guess my real job is to figure out how to get my own power. Maybe that’s what Mischa was gettin at when she said “Ya gotta be the bone, Zoe!” She meant I gotta
get behind the thing, whatever the thing is, and really feel it in order to know it. Then when I am acquainted with it I am fully charged. And since charged is energized and energy is light and light is power and E=MC squared... I got a direct line to the thing I am lookin to find.
I love a good circle of events. It reminds me of scentin out them rabbits, Ya get your one nostril right down in the dirt and take some real deep breaths, and let he other nostril flare a little in case any them rabbits is peerin out from the grass, it gives them a little scare. Although there was one rabbit said that nostril flarin thing I did gave her a frisson! I gotta look that up. It didn’t seem like she was much put-off by me, in fact I think she sorta fancied me! Yikes, what would I tell Pink, “Oh Cuz, ah, um there’s somethin I got a tell ya... I ah um is marryin a RABBIT!” That would not go over too good. Especially since Pink did accidentally kill one once. That’d be a big bone in the family closet that’d have to sit and stay forever buried.
Anyways I was sayin, when sniffin out rabbits or anything really that walks on the earth ya get down low and goes in a circle, it is real satisfyin. I told Mischa she should try it some time. She kind took her snout and twisted it like you might a washrag if it were too wet.
Hey speakin a wet, ole B threatened me with a bath the other day. I have a real good trick though, I can make my dog suit all white again, even after I been rollin in deer poop all afternoon! I am not in a position to reveal the secret behind my trick at this time. But when I feel like it is appropriate, I might jot it down, just so I don’t forget how to do it when I start inchin up in years...
So she turns around after launchin this warning at me, and starts workin on that path she was layin again. After about an hour she looks up at me and catches me unburying one of them bones! “Zoe you are going to get a bath, did you hear me?” I didn’t answer her cause a really can’t talk much.
Then I sees her squintin and squintin in my direction.
“Zoe, you’re, you’re, your dog suits all white! How did you do that?” I just shake my head and smile back at her, give a little window-washer-blade wave, and move on. That’s the only kinda wave I can manage, seein as my joints have their own ideas about motions. If Mischa holds my arm up sometimes she can manage to get me to wave just my hand up and down. It looks more normal that way. More like a daughter would wave, and less like a dog. Not that I’m ashamed one bit to be a dog, no no no. Just sayin, it does look cool to wave alike a girl once in awhile.
Hey I am spoutin drivel now. I am off and runnin with the mom’s this morning. Later.
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Day 37 Sunday August 18
Traumas Meltdowns and Weenie Roasts
Well Zoe thank god that day is over, it was jammed packed and traumatic. Mischa had higher hopes for it, I know...but I remind her ''ya gotta roll with it."
She says when I pop outta bed with that joie de vivre it is infectious, and she is gonna start lettin down her defenses, so as she can acquire some of it too.
Speakin a joie de vivre, I just learned my cuzin Pinky was french! Cheez I thought she'd haft ta be greek like me since we was cousins. Maybe french and greeks the same thing.
Anyways, yesterday Mischa thought maybe she would have like a date with herself and go to the doctor on the date. It didnt sound right when she first told us, but we rolled with it.
So she gets up extra early to go sweat and pant in the woods, and I played like I was still sleepin! I feel guilty about it now, but that's what I did. So then when she gets back she's all zoomin around while me and B still has sleep in our eyes and are walkin around sorta wobbly like. B says me and her is goin to get bread, and we leaves. Next thing I know we're going from one store to another, and B keeps bumpin into people who want to yak, and I'm thinkin, where's the bread? All I sees comin into the car is big wood sticks and little shiny metal sticks. You know B's a buildin fanatic...
Anyway about a month or so later we get back to the house and the phone is red hot and flashin like its havin a major emergency or something. And then it it starts ringing, and B picks it up and its ole Mischa who's been waitin on us for an hour cause we run off with the ferry tickets! Inadvertent ofcourse. But it still made ole Mischa sore, she says she is overly combustible sometimes, and this morning was one of them. But we gotta hand it to ya Mischa, you played it real cool with us, we didnt feel no fingers pointin in our direction, so hats off to ya girl.
So Mischa says she was on this date with herself so as she could get some good drawin time in. And that was the good news for the morning. There's gonna be three pieces of good news, to counter balance the bad news, cause that helps me cope disasters. When she gets off that ferry as per usual there's at least one tourist in an enormous SUV that's got ta race you up the road, and that drives us all crazy. I'm glad I wasn't there cause the traffic makes me shake, as I think I have mentioned. But Mischa says she dealt with it ok and just let whoever was in the biggest hurry, get in front of her. Wow...now that's new.
Apparently Mischa forgot about the thing that was growin on her ole thyroid last year, cause when she got to the docs office, he pulled out the big guns and started examining things real up close and personal. She said she had a sonogram, which sounded kinda fun, kinda like gettin in touch with our whale cousins. On accounta the room got real dark and the doc was sendin echo-waves or something like that into Mischa's neck and Mischa's neck was talkin back! But then the ole doc he looks at her and says, um, I gotta poke these things a bit, wait right here. Then he goes and gets two young girls who Mischa said were about 10 or 11 years old. She dint think they was really old enough to be workin, especially in a doctors office, but there they were. They were pleasant enough, but just not high confidence-buildin in the situation. Fortuantely it was not the young girls that did the pokin the needles into Mischa's neck, it was the doc. She said it didnt hurt as much in fact as it did her in theory. I think she means she could kinda envision what he was doin like she was hoverin above herself watchin him, and that was much more painful.
The idea of it, needles in your neck egads, people! Anyways he puts these two real big bandaids on her throat so as she could milk the sympathy thing when she got home, which she did!
But first she had to get home, which she did but only after an eternity. Right when Mischa gets to the ferry line its like miles away from the dock, translated, hours till sailing, plus the fog was lurking in the morning which put the whole days schedule off course. "It was a bundle of catastrophes!" Mischa said. That tourist traffic on the weekends is annoyin. We think we locals should have an express lane, like them executives do in the penthouse offices in the city. Why not? Ain't we special?
So Mischa said she remembered what I told her about rollin with, whatever 'it' was... and she took herself right outtat that car, and marched herself into the Ivars Seafood Restarant, and bellied up to that bar and ordered herself a Mac and Jack and somea them fish tacos! Vegan goes right out the window apparently when any turmoil is afoot. The good and bad news is turmoil is often afoot!
Mischa said this young woman bellied up to the bar around the same time, and she was also all hot under the collar about the whole day becoming about the ferry line. She asks the bartender for a red wine, and he starts to pour it and she looks over at Mischa with that huge glass of cold beer and says, "no no make that a vodka double with a splash a soda!"
The two a them starts yakin to pass the time and Mischa said they had synchronicity at the bar! She said the lady was also a painter who didn't paint much no more, and was also writin a book, and juggling a bunch a stuff in her life to stay afloat. And Mischa told the lady about the Artists Way books, and the lady felt like she had died and gonged heaven, or something like that...
When Mischa got home me and B showered her with affection and she started perkin up right away, she milked it a little more, but not too bad. Then we all got into the car and went to the annual Weenie Roast at Troy's house. Is this one of my favorite annual event? Yes it is. Them ladies highly weenie-worthy. Only thing is this year we got there so late, almost all the weenies was eatin. But there is always weenies in the grass if you got a good nose I like I do, it's a gold mine over there. Also there was a dog at the party who looked a lot like my cousins in New Mexico Mister Kosmos (he's greek) and his wife Rio who is not by the way from Brazil proper.
And watch out! get this! the tables was suddenly turned! Aint life interestin! Instead a that terrior checkin me out and sniffn around my unmentionable areas, I was sniffin her out! Mischa caught me in the act, en flagrante delecto I think they call it. I siad, "Mischa mea culpa momma!" "What could I do ? Some kinda deep rooted instinctual ancestral thing popped up on accounta bein out there in the woods, at night, around the fire n all. Things happen!
Well gotta go, Mischa and me got fair duty this morning. We gotta go guard the corn dogs. Not sure what that is, I am hoping it is something to eat, but it might be an art project. Hmmm didn't I eat an art project recently, and if I remember correctly it was delicious. Later
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Day 38 Monday August 19
DOCTOR DOCTOR BARNEY BLUEY
AND THE MAN DOWNSTAIRS
Oh zoe hello to self. Wow how could I have forgotten to mention that dream.
Same day Mischa had to have her neck stabbed four times in a row by the giant doctor in the white lab coat... We had a dream! Together! A nightmare really! So bad we woke up and could barely move we was so exhausted from dreamin. We have them recurrin dreams and they are never pleasant. Mischa says its some real old stuff come ta visit us, and we gotta figure out
exactly what it's tryin to say. I am here to tell my self this: them dreams is thick and obscure!
I don't know why they don't just come right out with it instead a playin this whole life-long guessin game with us . Then it's like, "well I think the young kid from West Virginia who was at the bottom of the stairs, was really that kid who came to the door last night." Then the dream yanks at ya and let's ya know you're really not on the right track if ya is lookin to decipher the metaphors. So then you gotta keep pokin at it until you get like an AhHah! Eureka! thing and the parts all start fallin nicely into place. "Oh, not the kid at the door, I see, he's really a stand-in for my bad intentions, all the things I daydream about doing to rabbits."
That is also about the time you realize you just spent the better part of your life livin one sort of illusion or another.
Cheez whiz it certainly seems unfair of the dreams to be so smug in knowin so much about us and yet so stingy about sharin! Mischa says ole Carl Jung spent his whole life on decoded them dream pictures. He wrote a tomb or something on it too. And its full a some real powerful insights into our psychology (nice greek word aint it?). I think it means studying psychos, which I truly hope me and Mischa is not.
Mischa says sometimes them dreams a forewarnin about rough seas ahead. I sure do hope that aint the case here. Better to be reminded of stuff that’s already been done than to get all in a knot about what’s up ahead. It all makes me nervous really.
Mischa says the good thing is her doctor has a sense a humor and he’s a big performer in the smarts department too.
One day he told her he was an exhomophobe! “Well that’s certainly a relief!” I told her. You dont want no mis-guided fool stickin them needles into your vocal chords. You dont wanna be mutated! And your juggler vein is right there for pete’s sake! Or is that supposed ta be peat’s sake, like to make things good and fertile and tied into them dinosaurs en all?
She said she liked that doc for bein so honest. I can kinda see her point. I do know when he delivered the monologue about her needin to count up them calories more careful, she wasnt singing his praises so dang loud. me neither, I think a woman’s calories is her own private business. It takes a lot a energy to drag these full figures around, doc. Hello!
Anyways back to that dream, there was people lurkin downstairs and ole B wouldn’t call the 911 for nothin, and Mischa was gettin all twisted about it and so was I!
Anyways it was scary and then one them people was this big ole 7 foot guy, the father of the clan who was ransackin the joint. He looked at me with this big smile, just like a psychopath! Not one of them, I’m-a-really-nice-person smiles. But one of them, I-want-you-to-believe-I’m-a-really-nice- person-so-I-can-bite-off-your-head-as-soon-as-your-back’s-turned smiles!
Egads it was a bad dream bad bad bad.
But after we woke up screamin, we all starts talkin about it and came around to a completely different conclusion. We all decided it was a really good dream. Cause number one Mischa felt like she took care of something that was really hard. And number 2 I didn’t jump totally outta my skin like I have a tendency to do. And number 3 Mischa said we was all the characters in the dream and they all just was bringin us messages, we needed to have! Messages we could mine for information for a long time forward!
“Oh” I says to her. “ I see.” But you know I’m still tryin to digest it all, cause I don’t really see myself as a long pimply adolescent boy from West Virginia, or his dad, or an old rolled up rug, or a banister...
Anyway I was just thinkin about one more thing I need to get off my chest this morning. That is the story some lady told me at the weenie roast. She says one night, real late, she got up to warm a bottle for the baby and it was all dark in her kitchen. Why she didn’t turn on the light she didn’t mention, I my self would never enter a dark room in the middle of the night, baby or no baby! Anyway she lights the burner up and this flamin blue thing goes runnin right across the counter top and takes a running leap into a glass of water!. Apparently she combusted a little mouse who was havin a midnight snack. The lady said she felt so bad about it, she started throwin him tidbits behind the stove every night beofre she went to bed. She gave em a name too, Bluey, she called him, on account the color he was when he was on fire!
Now lady, I know this story was suppose to warm up them cockles in my heart, but really, that’s gonna give me a real bad nightmare, I just know it!
Oh yeah and she said her cat Barney, (who is a girl) has been seen harboring little Bluey on occasion. Now that warms me up a bit. Some days you just gotta take the good with the bad I guess.
Well I am still tired leftover from that dream we had, so I will just get up on the barkerlounger (that’s a great name for a dog bed ain’t it) and count some jeeps.
Or somethin like that. Later
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Zoe's Cards are $6 each or
Available in boxed sets of 5 for $25 plus shipping.
Write to her mom with your favorites info@karthia.com
http://www.micheldemetriatsouris.blogspot.com
Zoe's Cards are $6 each or
Available in boxed sets of 5 for $25 plus shipping.
Write to her mom with your favorites info@karthia.com
MORE TO COME...
